k> v 




^LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 




UNITED STATES OF A1IE«ICA. J 



CHRISTIANITY 



APPLIED TO OUR 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL RELATIONS 



BY HUBBARD WINSLOW, 

Pastor of Bovvdoin Street Church, Boston. 




BOSTON 
PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM PEIRCE 

1V T « n r-< i-ii 



No. 9, Comhill. 



PRKSS OF VVKBSTER AND SOUTHARD 

1835. 

ex 






n 









7 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835, 

By WILLIAM PEIRCE, 

in the Clerk's office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 



PREFACE 



The following discourses are not a connected series, though all 
of them aim at the same principle. As they touch upon subjects of 
agitating interest, and have occassioned severe strictures, it is thought 
best to give them to the public in their original form. The author has a 
high esteem for many who differ from him respecting the most Christian 
way of treating certain subjects tending to alienations in church and 
state, especially masonry and slavery But it is hoped that we all have 
in view the same good object ; let us then speak out our views 
freely and in love. Now that the excitement of the moment is 
over, if, on reading and calmly pondering the sentiments of these 
discourses, any Christian brethren are justly grieved or offended, none 
will more regret it than the author, by whom, with fervent prayer 
for the divine blessing upon them, they are presented to the 
public. 



SERMON I. 

THE CHRISTIAN WAY TO PROMOTE LIBERTY AND UNION 
IN CHURCH AND STATE. 

A Discourse preached in Bowdoin Street Church, on the Sab- 
bath contiguous to the ±th of July, 1835. 

2 Cor. 3 : 17. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 
John 17 ; 21. That they all may be one. 

Standing on a national summit, to which we 
have been elevated by an unparalleled combination 
of propitious events, we cast a solicitous eye to the 
future-. Beholding this vast empire, stretching 
from sea to sea and from the burning to the frigid 
zone, its hundreds of lofty mountains, spacious 
valleys, majestic rivers, already impressed by the 
footsteps and yielding to the skill of civilized man : 
its forests melting rapidly away, and the wilderness 
everywhere beginning to bud and blossom as the 
rose ; towns, villages, cities, springing up like en- 
chantment on every side ; enterprise unequaled, 
and wealth rolling in like a flood ; liberty and 
abundance, simultaneous gladness and dancing in 
•1 



twelve million hearts ; who can forbear to inquire, 
What is to be the end of all this ? This nation, 
destined if it survives to be the greatest and might- 
iest on the globe, is it to be united, permanent, 
pious, happy, the grand asylum of unabused free- 
dom., the light and joy of the world ? Will that 
sun rise as bright on our children, as this day it 
rose on us ? Do not those sins which offend God 
and ruin men and nations, exist among us ? And 
do no portentous signs in the far heavens, no sullen 
murmurs beneath, no trembling at the basis of 
religious institutions and constitutional rights, no 
agitation of heated, impatient elements, admonish 
us of approaching tempest, earthquake, revolution, 
ruin ? 

Yet far be it from me to forbode evil. Rather 
would I endeavor to point out the means of averting 
it. I purpose to speak of liberty and union both 
in church and state. To unfold the means of their 
perfection and perpetuity, this is my object. May 
the spirit of the Highest overshadow, pervade, 
inspire us ; what is ignorant, instruct ; what is dark, 
enlighten ; energize what is feeble ; dispel all blind- 
ing passion and prejudice ; animate every mind with 
heaven's richest gift, a pure and ardent love of truth, 
of God, of man. 

My desire is to reach a principle. I am not un- 
apprised of the danger of hasty generalization ; but 
if it be characteristic of impetuous narrow minded- 



ness, on slender bases to establish sweeping princi- 
ples, and push them to extremities, not less does it 
betray mental feebleness and inefficiency, forever to 
wander in a wilderness of facts, resolving them 
into no common principle of unity, order, design. 
If we must generalize with caution, still must we 
do it j if, in pursuing a great principle, we should 
make haste slowly, still should we make sufficient 
despatch to overtake it at last. It is nature. The 
entire universe, physical and moral, is governed by 
laws few and simple. In proof of this, observe that 
the progress of all science towards perfection is 
marked by a resolution of isolated facts into gen- 
eral principles. Out of multitudinous chaos and 
darkness, gradually emerge order and light. In 
the physical sciences, what worlds of individual 
facts ; what libraries to contain them. Ascend to 
general principles and ultimately you arrive, it is 
believed, at one generic law which regulates the 
whole. So also in the science of morals. Volumes 
suffice not for all the laws ; yet are they compre- 
hended in a single sentence, almost in a single word. 
My principle is this, that the spirit of the gospel 
is alone adequate to perfect and perpetuate all gen- 
uine liberty and union, both in church and state. 
Let me first define terms. By the spirit of the 
gospel, I mean benevolence, sincere and universal. 
It seeks the best interests of all men, temporal and 
eternal. It is the essential fulfilling of that divine 



8 

law, which ought to govern the moral universe. 
Where this spirit lives and shines, it is death to 
alienations. Let it reign perfectly over the world, 
and earth is heaven. Discussions and differences of 
opinion may still exist, energy of thought and feel- 
ing may be engaged on various sides ; but all tend- 
ing to mutual edification and love. 

However bold and faithful a man is in exposing 
what he conceives to be your errors, let it be man- 
ifest to you that he sincerely seeks your best inter- 
est, and can you hate him ? Although you may 
not believe his doctrine, or feel the force of his 
rebuke, will he not gain your heart by love, if not 
by argument ? This is the spirit that is to subdue 
mankind to a righteous moral government. " God 
so loved the world." Let the"same spirit reign in 
his servants, and the great conquest will be achieved. 
Mere knowledge cannot do it ; argument cannot do 
it ; laws cannot do it ; this spirit can. It contends 
earnestly for truth, but it contends in love ; it 
rejoices not in iniquity, but it endureth all things, 
hopeth all things, never faileth ; and when it goes 
forth in its full strength, it has mighty power to 
disarm passion and prejudice and sin itself. 

By liberty, I define the condition of a mind 
rising from the dominion of selfishness and preju- 
dice, standing erect towards heaven and animated 
with its spirit. It is a mind emancipated from 
internal bondage, putting out its intellectual powers 



freely, and enjoying all the immunities of ecclesi- 
astical and civil franchise. It is a mind free to 
think, choose, act, on all subjects, private and pub- 
lic, religious and secular, controlled only by love to 
God and man, responsible only to a sound con- 
science, a righteous public sentiment, a future di- 
vine judgment. Where the spirit of the Lord is, 
in its most perfect reign, there is this liberty. A 
community of such minds, is a nation of freemen. 

By union, I mean oneness of affection and 
aim. It is the union of kindred minds, rendered 
such by benevolence. All other union is forced, 
the result external pressure. This is an elective 
moral affinity extending through the ranks of celes- 
tial beings, entering and possessing human minds, 
uniting God, angels, men, in a bond of common 
union, according to the divine prayer, ' that they 
all may be one, as thou Father art in me and I in 
thee, that they also may be one in us.' 

It is not, however, apprehended that all churches, 
all political parties, all nations, are ever to put on 
precisely the same form, much less to be melted 
into one body. All fatal errors will be abandoned, 
but distinct churches, various ecclesiastical forms, 
tenets unlike in unessential particulars, will perhaps 
survive as long as time. So also different politics, 
various forms of government, sectional and national 
peculiarities may always exist ; it is probably best 
they should. While there will be enough of diverse 



10 

opinions, discussions, inquiries on the various topics 
of religion, science, arts, government, to prevent 
the mortal elements from settling into a stagnant 
calm, they will still be so tempered with the spirit 
of the gospel, as never to rise into an angry tem- 
pest. If men do not all agree to think exactly 
alike, they will agree to differ and love each other 
still. 

Under the reign of such a spirit, religion must 
enjoy unprecedented prosperity ; for nothing has so 
retarded its progress, as the deficiency of this in the 
Christian church. Nations must prosper, our own 
nation become glorious and lasting as the sun and 
stars ; for nothing destroys nations, nothing endan- 
gers our own, but the opposite of this spirit. Lit- 
erature, sience, arts must prosper ; for nothing so 
narrows down and vandalizes the mind, as that 
dominion of prejudice and passion which this spirit 
tends to remove. It is under such a reign, there- 
fore, that primeval paradise is again to blossom. 

That mankind are on the whole advancing to- 
wards such a state, cannot be doubted. Intolerance 
and persecution are gradually losing ground. The 
brand, the scourge, the furnace, the scaifold, have 
seen their day. Religious discussions are becoming 
less acrimonious, and minor differinces of sects are 
attended with less alienation of affection than for- 
merly. Though many in name, all real Christians 
are becoming more one in heart. Politics are indeed 



11 

still selfish and noisy, and withal somewhat wrathful 
at times, but they have become nearly disarmed of 
all weapons more disastrous than words. A moral 
influence emanating from the gospel, tending at once 
to exalt beneficence and to soften asperities and en- 
courage toleration, is steadily setting forth upon the 
world. And all good minds anticipate a fulfillment 
of those prophetic voices, which predict universal 
peace on earth and good will to men ; the churches 
of Christ, one ; nations, one ; all animosities and 
wars ended ; a mellennial reign of peace, love, joy, 
over the earth. 

Yet long before the golden age shall fully come, 
an essential change of means must be realized in 
one capital respect. There must be more of pro-ism 
and less of anti-ism ; more of benevolent, positive 
movement towards the good, and less of angry as- 
sault upon the supposed bad. Religious sects, for 
instance, have hitherto made the building up of 
themselves very much to consist in the pulling down 
of others. While the Christian spirit was fresh and 
active in the vitals of the church, she was of one 
soul : her members, with few exceptions, stood fast 
in ' one spirit, with one mind, striving together for 
the faith of the gospel. 5 But follow her from the 
beginning of the second century, and you behold 
her catholic zeal for reclaiming the w T orld to God 
lost in animosities among her own members. Who 
can observe her motions, as she descends the track 



12 

of time along the dark ages, see her eyes closed up- 
on the perishing nations, her ears deaf to the last 
mandate of her Lord, while libraries rose under the 
angry pens of her unsanctified zeal expended upon 
contemptible trifles, and not weep to think of the 
millions thus left to perish in darkness and sin ? 

While the conflict was new and urgent between 
Protestant and Papal forces, Protestants were one ; 
but no sooner did it subside, than Protestants began 
to contend among themselves. Lutherans and Cal- 
vinists first set their faces against each other ; and 
soon followed the numerous contending sects of 
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Socinians, Universal- 
ists, Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, Congregational- 
ists. Not only have these sects contended against 
each other, but among themselves. A brief respite 
from foreign hostilities j has been a signal for civil 
war. Episcopacy is severed into high and low 
church ; Presbyterianism is in a progress of separa- 
tion ; Socinianism is approaching a similar catastro- 
phy ; Universalism is divided into Ultraism and Res- 
torationism ; Antinomianism and its opposite divide 
the Baptists ; Methodism is quite rent in sunder ; 
Quakerism is in like disaster, Congregationalism is 
not exempt from alienations. What a picture of 
the Christian church, whose great central law is 
love ! 

Nations, too, have ever been dashing against each 
other. Not only so, when war without has ceased, 



13 

war within has begun. The pressure of external 
hostilities removed, the elements of internal discord 
have been let loose, and what foreign foes could not 
accomplish has been the work of foes at home. Is 
not such the history of ancient kingdoms, Egypt, 
Assyria, Macedonia, Judea, Greece, Carthage, Rome ; 
of more modern kingdoms, too numerous and fam- 
illiar to be mentioned ? 

It would seem then to be problematical whether 
large and free bodies, either ecclesiastical or civil, 
can be long united. History would seem to have 
developed but two sad means, by which, mainly, 
communities of all kinds have hitherto been held 
together. The one is that of taking away light 
and liberty. Despotic governments, like those of 
China and the papal church, hold their subjects to- 
gether by holding them in bondage to ignorance. 
The other means, is that of making common cause 
against an enemy ; as whon the Protestants were 
contending against the Catholics, and the American 
colonies against the oppressions of Britain. 

Are mankind then always to be either in bondage 
or contention ? Is slavery or war the only alterna- 
tive ? How then are we to anticipate the promised 
ages of universal liberty and union, when all shall 
be free and all united ? Is there no power in the 
moral analogous to that in the physical universe, 
competent at once to set all minds free and yet to 
unite all in bonds of abiding union ? Certainly there 



14 

is. It is the law of the living spirit of the gospel. 
It is through the more engrossing cultivation of this, 
that the desired blessing will finally come. The 
excellent philosophy will be more practically recog- 
nized, that the way to subvert error is to build up 
truth, the way to dispel darkness is to introduce 
light. When God dispelled the darkness of primeval 
chaos, it was not by contending with it or command- 
ing it to retire, but by creating light. The way to 
reclaim a wandering world is, not to draw the sword 
of hostility against, but to present to it its lost God, 
his character, his law ; Christ, his gospel, his ever- 
lasting rewards ; hold up to it in towering eminence 
the great object, holiness, without which no man 
can inherit life, and towards which all hearts should 
continually press. 

The duty of the gospel minister especially, in rela- 
tion to the various agitating subjects of the day, is 
then very plain. Greatly do those men mistake 
who apprehend that the apostles were mainly engaged 
in attacking this or that particular vice. Thousands 
have spent their lives thus and effected nothing. 
Do you suppose that the gospel would ever have 
made its way into the world thus ? The apostles 
had another and a higher work to do, than to go out 
and get up anti societies against particular vices. 
This may be a very suitable and important work 
for those to whom it is assigned, but it can never 
be the engrossing work of the gospel minister who 



15 

walks in the steps of apostles. They went out to 
hold up to mankind the great generic remedy of all 
sin, to proclaim Christ and him crucified ; to make 
known the transforming doctrine, that God so loved 
the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but 
have eternal life ; to preach repentance towards God 
and faith in Christ. Such was the burden of their 
souls. They labored directly and absorbingly to 
pour back the lost light of heaven into the dark and 
fallen world. Thus when Paul stood in the midst 
of Mars Hill, and his spirit was stirred in him on 
seeing the city wholly given to idolatry, he did not 
spend his breath in a storm of wrath against that 
sin, but, < whom they ignorantly worshipped, him 
did he declare unto them j ' and having unfolded 
the glorious perfections of the true God, in this 
light he presented to them his ' command to all men 
everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a 
day in which he will judge the world in righteous- 
ness.' So preached all the apostles. Preaching 
the cardinal doctrines of the gospel, was the grand 
means by which they persuaded men to abandon 
their errors and their sins. It was by the expulsive 
power of the new affection, that men became divorc- 
ed from their idolatries. 

While we advocate the enforcement of the 
Christian doctrines, as the essential work of the 
gospel ministry, with equal earnestness do we 



16 

plead that it be done in the exercise of trie Chris- 
tian spirit. A man may espouse the most accurate 
doctrines, and still push forward his cause with 
none other than the bitter and fruitless spirit of fa- 
natical extermination. He may be a bold champi- 
on of truth, a tireless heresy-hunter, a most accu- 
rate critic, a dexterous pugilist, all for the Christian 
cause, as he doubts not, and yet himself not be a 
Christian. And while we assign the first place to 
the doctrines of Christianity, inculcated with the 
right spirit, we are far from believing that infinite 
interests are made to turn on a hypercritical exegesis, 
or profoundly erudite hermeneutics j or a word, 
or a letter, or a point ; or on a wire-drawn meta- 
physical abstraction, so tenuous as to elude all but 
the keenest optics, and thus provoke contention 
between those who can see it and those who can- 
not. We believe that the great Christian doctrines 
and the conditions of everlasting life may be made 
to stand forth to all eyes like the sun, concealed 
from none but the wilfully blind. God made that 
sun to enlighten the world ; not less the gospel. 

A tendency has ever existed among Christians, 
to decline from the higher and more spiritual du- 
ties of religion to an absorbing interest in those 
more remote and secular ; which inevitably pro- 
duces alienation, and brings disaster to vital re- 
ligion. For no sooner do they descend from the 
position in which they are unitedly held in su- 



17 

preme devotement to the same great spiritual ob- 
ject, than one man fastens upon one cause, another 
Upon another, another upon another, each viewing 
tilings in his own peculiar light, and attaching 
paramount importance to his own cause ; whence 
arises strife, party, denunciation. The error lies in 
aiming remedies primarily at the effects of sin, 
which are many, rather than at the source of all 
sin, which is one ; in attempting to destroy the tree 
of evil by lopping off branches, and pruning 
away excrescences, instead of laying an axe at the 
root. With a wisdom truly marvellous did Christ and 
his apostles keep a steady eye to their great work, 
and never did they descend to a direct interference 
with matters of secular and party interest, con- 
sidering that if the fountain was cleansed, the 
streams would soon become pure of course. 

The mode ordained by God, and set forth in 
the gospel, for healing the moral maladies of the 
world, is as follows. 

Every man is first to secure his own heart to 
God ; with his character and government he is to 
become well acquainted ; he is to maintain a con- 
stant vital communion with him, ever cherishing 
the sentiment, ' Whom have I in heaven but thee, 
and there is none upon earth that I desire beside 
thee.' He is to become personally interested in 
the Savior, to learn who he is, what he has done, 
what he intends to do ; and to commit himself to 



18 

his grace and guidance. No duty can be tanta- 
mount to this. Even a life passed in enterprises 
important to others, but in neglect of this duty, 
will encounter the fatal rebuke of him who kept 
the vineyard of others, but neglected his own. 

His next relation, as a Christian, is to the church. 
No covenant is more sacred or binding, than that 
which unites a member to this body. The matri- 
monial covenant has upon it the seal of God ; to 
prove faithless to it, is a sin of deep die. But this 
is in some respects even more sacred. It is a union 
to Christ publicly solemnized; a union of imperish- 
able minds in interests of infinite moment. The 
matrimonial relation is dissolved at death j this en- 
dures forever. In this age of numerous associa- 
tions, let us beware that none divide our affections 
with the church. Better a thousand times that all 
other associations be scattered to the winds, than 
that they be suffered to interfere with this. Here 
should ever be found the green spot, the garden of 
sweet spices, the delightful abode of Christian 
sympathies, the admiration and joy of the earth ; 
so that all men shall exclaim, { Behold, how good 
and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell togeth- 
er in unity. As the dews of Hermon, and as the 
dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion ; 
for there the Lord commanded his blessing, even 
life forevermore.' 

His next duty as a Christian is, to put forth a 



19 

direct personal influence for the spiritual regenera- 
tion of men. So essential is this, that almost no- 
thing is done till this is done. When you persuade 
a man to become temperate, you do well ; when 
you persuade him to become a Christian, you do 
better. This ought ye to do, and not to leave the 
other undone. It is not of infinite moment that a 
man belong to this or that party, or that he em- 
brace this or that political creed ; that he become 
a Christian, is of infinite moment. Are not some 
of us converting men to almost everything else but 
religion ? We must return to this primary duty, 
or the great wheel on which the world's salvation 
turns will cease to move, and all the subordinate 
wheels of Christian enterprise will eventually 
stop. 

His next Christian duty is, to sustain the instru- 
mentalities for evangelizing the world ; the 
preaching of the gospel, the cause of Bibles, 
Missions, Education, Tracts, Sabbath Schools, 
the entire system of means for obeying the last 
injunction of the Savior, to ' go into all the world 
and preach his gospel to every creature.' 

These are the great generic means of displacing 
sin and promoting our religious and civil interests. 
Let these be well done, and all others will follow 
in the right spirit and manner. Nothing is well 
done, but as these take the lead. Yet there are 
certain specific means somewhat of human device, 



20 

in subordination to these advantageously employed, 
of which it is next in place to speak. As the 
physician, while giving his main attention to the 
seat of disease, endeavors also to alleviate its re- 
mote outbreakings, especially when they act back 
with serious energy upon the source, so a subordi- 
nate attention may often wisely be given to the 
mitigation of certain specific forms of sin. Not 
that such means are ever alone adequate to remove 
the cause and thus effect a radical cure ; they only 
serve to keep the disease in abeyance, while the 
grand antidote has opportunity to take effect. 

This is especially true of intempera?ice. The 
intemperate man is in a sense physically incapaci- 
tated to realize the saving power of the gospel. 
He is a deranged man. He must abandon his cups, 
or there is little hope that the gospel will ever take 
effect upon him. The appetite is strong, violent, 
incontrollable. Now there is great power in the 
social principle. Strengthened by the example of 
others, a man will perform a self-denial which he 
would not alone. Power there is too in a mutual 
promise. Hence the temperance pledge. It is a 
forced measure, an expedient like that of inserting 
a temporary wooden prop under a falling edifice, 
till you can get the granite under. No temper- 
ance pledges will be needed, when the gospel 
shall have taken full effect in the earth. At pres- 
ent their utility is undoubted. 



21 

Reasoning from this peculiar case, in which a 
state of physical derangement induced by poison 
unfits a man to exercise the powers of a rational 
moral agency, some have gone on to infer that 
there is a long list of particular sins which must 
be removed by some agency anterior to that of the 
gospel, to prepare its way, before it can take effect. 
Now although not quite sure that the gospel was of 
old anticipated by more than one John the Baptist, 
yet I object not to numerous specific societies and 
measures for the mitigation or removal of particular 
forms of sin, provided they be kept in their right 
relation and due subjection. I would not annihi- 
late any of them ; rather would I aid them all. 
But to do this most effectually, let us keep them in 
their appropriate sphere ; let us not assign to them 
the place or office which is the glorious preroga- 
tive of the gospel only. 

Neither do I object to the enthusiasm which the 
reformer of any particular vice naturally feels in 
his espoused object. I love to see it. It evinces 
an honest and engaged heart. Indeed, a man is 
little else than true to his own nature, who does not 
soon come to think that the particular sin against 
which he has especially set his face as a reformer, 
is the great sin that is killing the world, the parent 
of all other sins, and that little can be done towards 
saving mankind till it is first removed. But his 



22 

zeal is somewhat annoying, when it becomes so 
exorbitant as to require all men te revolve with him 
around his object, or perhaps rather around his ob- 
ject and himself too, or fall under his scorching 
rebuke. Cheerfully will we lend our aid to all 
good reformers, according to the appropriate meas- 
ure ; but when every one demands of us the same 
engrossing interest in his object which himself has, 
expects us to view things in the same light and 
pursue the same course with him, we find ourselves 
taxed quite beyond our ability. 

One reformer conceives that lewdness is the great 
sin. He has ascertained that it is vastly more ex- 
tensive, rife, malignant, destructive to soul and 
body and to our religious and social interest, than 
all other sins put together. All the other com- 
mandments of the decalogue depend upon the 
seventh. Let us then form a Seventh Command- 
ment Society, turn our main strength against this 
sin till it is vanquished, then will the cause of sal- 
vation move on. Wo to the preacher, who does 
not lift up his voice like a trumpet against this sin, 
till the Achan is destroyed. 

Another does not view things quite in this light. 
He conceives that the profanation of the Sabbath 
is the great sin to be removed. The instructions 
of the Bible on this point are remarkably bold and 
explicit. If there be any question as to the propri- 
ety of publicly exposing and attacking lewdness 



23 

in its details, respecting this there can be none. 
On none does the Bible denounce heavier wrath, 
and none is so universal in our land. Let us then 
have a Fourth Commandment Society. To hasten 
and enforce the desired consummation, let us pro- 
cure six-day stages, steamboats, markets, milkmen, 
barbers ; let us get all to the house of God ; soon then 
will every sin die, and our religious and civil insti- 
tutions will tower in rTyramids of strength towards 
heaven. Is not the voice of inspiration unequiv- 
ocal, that this is the sin whose removal ensures 
every blessing ? ' What evil thing is this that ye 
do and profane the Sabbath day ? Did not your 
fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil 
upon us and upon this city ? Yet ye bring more 
wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath day. 
If thou shalt turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, 
from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call 
the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, hon- 
orable ; and shalt honor him, not doing thy own 
ways, nor finding thy own pleasure, nor speaking 
thy own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in 
the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the 
high places of the earth, and feed thee with the 
heritage of Jacob thy father : for the mouth of the 
Lord hath spoken it.' 

Another considers that the sin of war is greatest 
of all. It is a great cause of Sabbath-breaking, 
and the prolific cause of all conceivable evil. It 



24 

is expressly condemned by our Savior, and diamet- 
rically repugnant to the spirit of his gospel. If all 
men could be brought to act upon the principles of 
peace, soon would the full dominion of God's law 
follow. And how can we expect missions to pros- 
per and religion to prevail over the earth, till at least 
Christian nations hoist the flag of truce and learn 
war no more ? War has in all ages been the great 
impediment to the success of the gospel. Let us 
then have a Peace Society, put an end to all war, 
then will the gospel have free course. 

Another conjectures that the great sin lies far- 
ther back, which engenders war and all other sins. 
It is the use of fermented drinks in the form of 
wine, porter, beer, cider and other similar articles 
not recognized in the common temperance pledge. 
The secret of virtue is cool blood. Wars come of 
lusts, and lusts come of heated blood, and heated 
blood comes of stimulating drinks. History instructs 
us that all wars are waged under this preternatural 
excitement. Besides, intellect is so clear and reason 
so bright, when the physical system is calm and 
cool, that we only need to remove these stimulants 
and men will of course perceive and obey the gos- 
pel. Let us then have a Temperance Society em- 
bracing the comprehensive pledge, and the highway 
to universal piety will be cast up. 

Another, however, supposes that of all the arti- 
cles that ever cursed man physically, intellectually 



25 

and morally, none is before that filthy weed called 
tobacco. That it is a most insidious and fatal 
poison, we all know. It creates artificial excite- 
ment, unnatural appetite, ungovernable craving for 
other stimulants ; besides that by its very filth it 
directly tends to debase and pollute both body and 
mind. An Anti-Tobacco Society is therefore in- 
dispensable. 

But says another, Experience has taught me, that 
tea and coffee are equally pernicious with wine and 
tobacco, especially to nervous temperaments. Med- 
ical books also teach us, that they contain narcotic 
properties, which cannot fail to operate upon the 
system as a slow poison. Are not some of the 
effects of opium produced by coffee ? and what vir- 
tuous person would venture on an habitual use of 
opium ? Who cannot learn that coffee gradually 
undermines the tone of the stomach, and at last 
plunges its votary into the horrors of dyspepsia? 
And do we not all know that hyson crucifies the 
nerves ? What mean these sick head aches, nerv- 
ous diseases, premature graves ? Nothing should 
be drunk stronger than pure water. We must have 
an Anti-Tea-and-Coffee Society. 

Another assures us that the evil does not stop 
here. The physiology of man plainly demonstrates 
that he was not made to be carnivorous. To say 
nothing of the injustice of living by the death of 
animals, who are entitled to live as well as we, it 
3 



26 

is violence to our own constitution. It shortens the 
age of man. So did not men in the days of Methu- 
selah. The use of animal food hastens physical 
maturity ; urges on the vital energies to premature 
exhaustion ; vitiates the secretions ; clouds the in- 
tellect ; feeds the sensual passions ; and is, in short, 
a principal source of all vice. Let us then have an 
Anti-Flesh Society ; let mankind be induced to 
come upon an exclusive vegetable diet, and soon 
will the abolition of all sin naturally follow. 

Another asserts that Fashionable Dressing, is 
inferior to no other vice of our day. We must have 
a Society against this. Thousands are annually 
sacrificed by tight lacing and other distortions and 
exposures. What sin is greater than suicide, especial- 
to gratify vanity ? Moreover, what right have we 
to alter and deform God's beautiful work ? The 
expense too, the folly, the dissipation of modern 
fashions ! Can we expect anything good, till this 
iniquity is removed ? Does not the Bible discoun- 
tenance this ' outward adorning of plaiting the hair, 
and of wearing of gold or putting on apparel ? ' And 
is it not incontestable that many of the ' daughters of 
our Zion are haughty, and walk with extended 
necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as 
they go ?' Let us ' take away their crescents, chains, 
bracelets, mufflers ; their bonnets, head-bands, tab- 
lets, ear-rings ; their changeable suits of apparel, 
mantles, wimples, crisping pins j their glasses, hoods 



27 

and vails ; ' — the men, too, let them be induced to 
abandon the slavery of fashion and pride ; let the 
reform in dress become thorough and universal, and 
speedily will the end of sin come. 

Now the moral character of all these, rests upon 
the same doctrine of utility. With the exception of 
two or three, there is no specific command in the 
Bible touching them. The simple principle is, that 
it is wicked to injure ourselves or others. As fast, 
therefore, as a practice is clearly proved to be inju- 
rious it becomes wicked. Not that sin itself changes, 
but in respect to points not specified in the Scrip- 
tures, whose moral character of course is determined 
by perceived consequences, what is sinful under one 
set of circumstances or one degree of light, is not 
always so under others. Hence the manufacturing 
and use of alcohol is now in this country almost 
universally sinful, although it was not so twen- 
ty years ago. On the same principle the habitual 
use of tobacco, of wine, ale, porter, cider, is now 
sinful to many, though not as extensively so as the 
use of distilled alcohol. Should increasing light 
make it manifest, as it perhaps will, that the use of 
coffee and tea and animal food is injurious, then 
will the use of these also become sinful to those 
thus enlightened. Possibly all the articles against 
which the sternest reformer sets himself, not only 
alcohol, but wine, beer, cider, coffee, tea, animal 
food, all but a simple vegetable diet with pure water, 



28 

will in the progress of light become universally 
known as injurious, and thus, among all good men, 
will pass into condemnation and desuetude. Surely 
I would be the last to lift a finger against it ; if the good 
of mankind demands it, I would hasten the event. 
But as sins of this class depend upon the kind and 
degree of a man's light, the reformer will indulge 
the suggestion, that he must not make his own con- 
science a rule by which to measure other men's sins, 
and denounce all who do not come up to his mark. 
Let him go on patiently enlightening the minds of 
men in respect to the injurious tendencies of the 
thing he would displace, allowing members of 
churches to walk according to the light they have, 
and ministers to pursue their appropriate office of 
preaching the gospel ; and thus, by the combined 
action of the gospel upon the consciences and hearts 
of men, and of the reformer's light upon their under- 
standings, will both the cause of spiritual religion 
and of moral reform be advanced together, in the 
most effectual manner. In this way the liberty and 
union of Christian churches may be preserved, while 
passing through the trying ordeal of the various mor- 
al reforms of our day. 

In the mean time let us also look well to the 
spirit and manner, with which we pursue the ref- 
ormation of men ; for there is a wrong as well as 
right way, even to do good. And can any of us 
do better, than to follow close to the example of 



29 

Christ ? May we then indulge an angry and re- 
proachful spirit towards those wno oppose us ? 
No. Christ was ever meek and forgiving ; ' when 
he was reviled, he reviled not again. 5 Like him 
we are "in meekness to instruct those that oppose 
themselves, if peradventure God may give them 
repentance.' May we not assume the prerogative 
to lord it over men and gratify ambition ? No. 
Christ was ever humble ; the servant of all. He 
washed his disciples' feet. Like him we must 
not ' lord it over God's heritage, but be ensamples 
to the flock.' May we not resort to violent and 
forced measures, to do good ? No. We then de- 
viate from Christ ; we rather do harm than good. 
Christ was 'gentle.' ' The wisdom that is from 
above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to 
be entreated.' ' The servant of the Lord must not 
strive ' — indulge angry contention — ' but be gen- 
tle to all men.' Is it not at least allowed us some- 
times to get out of patience, and to indulge in 
fretful complaining ? Never. Our Lord was c pa- 
tient towards all men ;' and so ought we to be. 
1 Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and 
beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness 
of mind, meekness, long-suffering ; forbearing one 
another and forgiving one another ; if any man 
have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave 
you, so also do ye. And above all these things 
put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness : 
*3 



30 

and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to 
which also ye are called in one body? Both pu- 
rity and union will come of this. 

And further, if we would bear forward the ref- 
ormation of the world with greater certainty and 
speed, we must, like our Savior, preserve integrity 
of mind and absence of all that is fanatical in ei- 
ther spirit or manner. While pressing the princi- 
ples of morality to the highest point of excellence, 
even to the point of sinless purity, he never fell 
into extravagant notions and measures ; no wild- 
ness, no eccentricity, no contravening of the laws 
and ordinances of nature. His was a rational, dig- 
nified, calm, cheerful, holy walking before God 
and the world, according to the established laws 
of nature, the course of divine providence, and the 
everlasting principles of righteousness. He never 
cast himself down from a height, or leaped into 
the water, expecting a miracle to save him ; al- 
though himself had wrought many miracles. He 
never became ascetic and morose towards social 
enjoyments, although himself much alone in com- 
munion with God. He never undertook to be 
righteous overmuch, to go beyond the mark of 
sound morality and religion, for the sake of bring- 
ing others up to it ; he better understood human 
nature. He did just and only what was right, liv- 
ing according to the laws of nature and of God. He 
well knew that the wicked of his and all generations 



31 

are full of insincere cavils, never to be silenced by 
our yeilding to them ; that if we are too lax, they 
will complain of that ; if too rigid, they will com- 
plain of that ; if neither, they will complain of that. 
So far was he from yielding to the self-righteous 
and ascetic spirit of the Scribes and Pharisees, 
that while the most consistently and religiously 
temperate man in all things that ever lived, and 
the most discreet in respect to the company he 
visited, he yet was denounced by them as a glut- 
ton, a wine-bibber, and a companion of publicans 
and sinners. Nor did he deny that he ate and 
drank, and that too in company of irreligious per- 
sons, contrary to the notions of morality entertain- 
ed by the Scribes and Pharisees ; but how did he 
reply to the charge ? ' To what shall I liken this 
generation ? It is like to children sitting in the 
markets and calling to their fellows and saying, 
We have piped to you and ye have not danced ; 
we have mourned to you and ye have not lament- 
ed. For John came neither eating nor drinking, 
and they say he hath a devil. The Son of man 
came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold 
a gluttonous man, a wine-bibber, a friend of pub- 
licans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of 
her children.' 

If you will study the history of fanaticism, not 
only that of all impostors, but also that which has 
marred the Christian Church, produced false stan- 



32 

dards of character, and awakened a tone of de- 
nunciation and wrath, in place of meekness and 
love ; which has even levelled nearly all evangeli- 
cal piety to the ground for centuries, imposing in- 
stead thereof, pains and penances and purgatories ; 
and if you will so far study the philosophy of 
our nature, as to learn the violent strength of our 
tendencies that way, you will appreciate the im- 
portance of the Savior's example in this particular 
also, though hy most at the present day slightly 
valued. When you see men wise above the Bible, 
undertaking to be more moral, or religious, or 
prudent than Jesus Christ ; wishing that he had 
sometimes done differently, as recently did a well 
meaning person, when he expressed a wish that 
Christ had not made wine and sanctioned its use 
at a wedding, and as another did when he 
thought on the whole that Christ would have done 
better not to have used wine at the sacramental 
board, you may know that the spirit of fanaticism 
is beginning to work, and that what begins with 
denouncing Jesus Christ, will not be likely to end 
without denouncing even his most consistent fol- 
lowers, and setting itself up, of course, as more 
righteous than all. 

Following in the track of these ultra notions, 
an infidel of some note has recently advanced the 
opinion ' that Jesus Christ has done more to impede 
the cause of morality than any other man that ever liv- 



33 

ed ; ' For ' says he £ the use of animal food, and of all 
fermented and stimulating drinks, including coffee 
and tea, is, by exciting the animal propensities, at 
the foundation of every vice ; and by countenan- 
cing the use of such things, especially the habit- 
ual use of meat, and an occasional use of wine, 
Jesus Christ has, by the power of his great name, 
and wide example, done an injury to our race 
which ages cannot repair.' Such is the end of 
fanaticism ; alike at war with reason, with nature, 
with providence, and with Jesus Christ. It is 
infidelity, sometimes creeping in upon us, unsus- 
pected, at the back door of the Church. 

Would I then leave the cause of temperance to 
fall ? God forbid. It is a glorious cause ; it is of 
God. Rather would I place the herculean pillars 
of righteousness, the morality of the Bible and of 
Christ underneath it, and thereon let it stand for- 
ever. But do I advocate the use of stimulants ? 
So far, and only so far, whether in the form of 
food or drink, as is most productive of sound 
health, morality, and happiness, to be determined 
by science and experience. Were I to speak my 
personal experience, I should perhaps say, the less 
of stimulants the better. Accordingly, seldom does 
anything pass my lips stronger than pure water. 
To myself the habitual use of tea and coffee were 
not less pernicious than wine. So experience 
taught me many years since. But shall I then 



34 

make myself a standard for all others ? So did not 
Christ ; neither will I. ' John came neither eating 
nor drinking.' ' The Son of man came eating and 
drinking.' Why this difference ? Why did not 
John condemn Christ, or Christ John ? Their 
constitutions, or their employments, or their cir- 
cumstances were different ; they each lived accor- 
dingly. ' Why then is my liberty judged by ano- 
ther man's conscience ?' And why shall I grudge 
my neighbor his enjoyment of bounties congenial 
to him, because forsooth my own health or purse 
is too poor to bear it ? Rather let me enjoy his 
enjoyment ; and if I think him mistaking his best 
way, endeavor in the spirit of kindness to en- 
lighten him. ' Give up your wine,' says one, ' and 
I will give up my New England rum.' ' Give up 
your coffee and tea,' says another, 'and I will 
give up my wine.' ' Give up your cider,' says ano- 
ther, c and I will give up my ale.' ' Give up your 
butter,' says another, ' and I will give up my meat.' 
Rather let me say to all, Relinquish whatever is 
injurious to you, retain whatever is beneficial, 
and I will do the same j or if you will not, yet 
will I. 

Such I believe to be the Christian way to promote 
temperance, and vastly more effectual than many 
of the forced measures to which resort is had ; for 
there is a principle in man which repels them, and 
will repel them. Push such measures hard, and 



35 

many will become intemperate in self defence. 
Men were not made to bear the screw and the vice. 

And as to social entertainments ; do I, in refer- 
ring to the conduct of Christ, undertake to" advocate 
them. Just so far, and of such kind, as the best 
fulfillment of social relations, the best discharge of 
social duties, and the best interests of society de- 
mand ; to be determined by a conscientious exer- 
cise of our experience and judgment. So did Jesus 
Christ. ' Walk firmly after his spirit and example 
in this and all other particulars, and you will never 
be intimidated to weakness, or beguiled into spleen, 
or befooled out of your common sense ; you will 
not say or do a weak, or splenetic, or foolish thing ; 
for the spirit of Christ is not a ' spirit of fear, but of 
'power and of love and of a sound mind.'' You will 
not ' strain at a gnat and swallow a camel ; ' you 
will not ' tithe mint and anise and omit the weighty 
matters ; ' you will not exhibit a distorted and fright- 
ful caricature of piety, as fanaticism always does j 
your light will shine in a completeness of character, 
embracing all the relations and duties of life, accord- 
ing to their respective importance. 

When we see the warring notions of the world 
respecting what constitutes right character, the 
more numerous and warring as the world advances 
in speculations and philosophies and refinements 
and reforms, are we not convicted of the impor- 
tance of one perfect character, like that of Christ, 



36 

drawn out and presented to the world in living 
form, to which all controversy may appeal, and to 
which all minds may refer ? ' This is the Judge 
that ends the strife.' How much the example of 
Christ remains to be studied and copied, before the 
world will come under the benign reign of his 
gospel, we shall all do well seriously to consider. 



SERMON II. 

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

Come we now to notice those movements for 
reform, which have a more directly secular and 
civil aspect. I enter upon this ground, not unap- 
prised of its dangers. I am aware that the spirit 
of contention has descended from the higher regions 
of metaphysical and purely religious doctrines, to 
matters of more obvious and secular interest. Here 
all feel competent to engage, and all have feelings 
to enlist. My aim is simply to carry out what I 
believe to be a sound and important principle j in 
so doing to speak so plainly, as not to fail of being 
understood. 

Some have supposed that the vice which blots 
the church and endangers our country before all 
others, is masonnj. What more horrible than 
secrets, and what more profane than masonic vows ? 
What more repugnant to republicanism ? Then 
the useless instruments, the apron, the trowel, the 
idle ceremonies, the nonsense. This system must 
be put down, or our churches and our country will 
4 



33 

be ruined. We must have an Anti-Masonic Society. 
The spirit of proscription must kindle to a flame ; 
it must not only purify our politics, but it must 
come in and burn on the altars of our churches. 
The man who is so unfortunate as to have worn 
an apron some dozen years since, must forfeit a seat 
at the Lord's table, unless he will assume the posi- 
tion of a political partizan against the hated craft ; 
and all others, who do not sympathize in the be- 
nevolent work of extermination, must be regarded 
as almost equally guilty. 

I pretend to no opinion respecting the character 
of masonry, nor do I impeach the motives of those 
who seek its ends by violent means. Its friends 
generally admit, that although it has answered 
some serviceable ends in by gone years, its utility 
is now nearly or quite supersceded by other benev- 
olent institutions. It is apparently growing old 
and decrepid ; may its death be peaceful. Indeed 
the Anti-Masonic fever is evidently abating, and is 
giving place to another subject of still more exten- 
sive and exciting interest. 

In the opinion of not a few, slavery is the sin, 
that is standing in the way of all our benevolent 
operations for evangelising the world. Moreover, 
it is a dark thunder cloud in our political sky, 
charged with wrath to the nation. Vain are all 
other attempts to do good, till this sin is removed. 
An Anti-Slavery Society we must have, and to it 



39 

all other things must give place. The preaching 
of the gospel, Bible Societies, Missionary Socie- 
ties, Education Societies,' Tract Societies, Sabbath 
School Societies, yea, even the Church itself, pas- 
tors, deacons, and all, must haste and get out of 
the way, or be rolled over and crushed by the burn- 
ing wheels of anti-slaveryism. 

Must then the great instrumentalities for evan- 
gelizing the world be neglected, till slavery is abol- 
ished ? You can never abolish slavery in that way. 
It is only by having those interests sustained and 
urged onward, our hearts and hands supremely 
given to them, that a moral tone is sustained in the 
public mind by which the cause of abolitionism 
itself is enabled to effect any thing. To the sub- 
ject of slavery we are more than willing to assign 
its appropriate place ; but we cannot exempt it from 
the same law of subordination, under which we 
have placed all the other subjects of moral and po- 
litical reform. Place any of these subjects in a 
relation other than that of servants in due subjec- 
tion, and they will soon create divisions, throw the 
world into confusion, produce a false standard of 
Christian character, undermine the foundation of 
sound religion, and produce fanaticism. 

A man may be all that these anti-societies can 
possibly make him, and yet not be a Christian. He 
may be anti-alcohol, to the extent of its complete 
abandonment from use and traffic; anti-seventh- 



40 

commandment-breaking, to the extent of the let- 
ter ; anti-fourth-commandment-breaking, to the ex- 
tent of his ability j anti-war, to the extent of 
the most scrupulous non-resistance j anti-ferment- 
ed-liquors, to the extent of the most modern 
pledge ; anti-tobacco, to the extent of proscribing 
the last delicious morsel ; anti-tea and coffee, to 
the extent of pure cold-waterism ; anti-animal-food, 
to the extent of an exact vegetable diet ; anti- 
fashionable-dressing, to the extent of the most 
fastidious Quakerism ; anti-mason, to the extent 
of a complete extermination of the obnoxious Craft 
from both church and state j anti-slavery, to the 
extent of leveling both the ecclesiastical and civil 
canons against slaveholders, and of abstaining from 
the use and traffic of all tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar, 
raised by slaves, — as a consistent, ultra abolitionist 
he must do, — all these may he be, and yet not be a 
Christian. In all he may be utterly destitute of 
the spirit of the gospel, moved by none other than 
selfish motives. He may be a glorious anil, and 
nothing else. Or rather, with all, he may be an 
anti-christian. 

Now it is a law of our nature, that whenever a 
man sets his heart strongly to oppose an object that 
does not readily yield, unless he give first attention 
to securing and nourishing the spirit of the gospel, 
his zeal degenerates to fanaticism. This is enthu- 
siasm inflamed by hatred. Suppose, for instance, 



41 

that after this manner a man gives his whole soul 
to the immediate abolition of slavery. It soon 
completely fills the eye of his mind, and engages 
his entire heart. He begins to wonder why all 
men do not see and feel as he does. He is con- 
scious of a wonderful revolution within him, since 
he espoused the true doctrine. His heart is en- 
larged, his tongue loosed, he is breathing a fresh 
exhilerating atmosphere in a clear upper sky. He 
is confident that he is exactly right, and that all 
who do not sympathize with him are in awful 
guilt. Especially pastors and churches, what can 
they mean ? Let no preacher be tolerated, who 
does not forthwith leave his appropriate work and 
take up arms in the crusade of instant abolitionism. 
Let no church extend charity or communion to any 
man sustaining the relation of master, however he 
came into this relation, or by whatever necessity 
he retains it. Let all who refuse to denounce him 
as a man-stealer, be themselves denounced. This, 
he is confident, is the Christian way to abolish 
slavery. 

But he finds a powerful class of minds, some- 
what accustomed to think as well as he, who do 
not see things in his light. They are quite as 
certain that his is not the Christian way, as he is 
that it is. They as truly believe that he is set- 
ting back the cause of emancipation, as he does 
that he is setting it forward. He complains of 



42 

persecution. He thinks he is suffering for right- 
eousness sake ; although perhaps the amount of his 
persecution, is simply to be let alone. But the 
idea of suffering for righteousness sake, as all il- 
lustrious reformers have done, spurs him on to an 
uncontrollable state of mind. He is not conscious 
of it. He thinks himself calm as a summer morn- 
ing, open to conviction, full of nought but pure 
love, when the spirit of fanaticism is speaking in 
his eye, his countenance, his language, and it is 
difficult to divine whether he most loves the slave 
or hates the master ; whether he most loves the 
cause he thinks to promote, or hates those who he 
thinks oppose him. By no means do I assert the 
actual existence of this in the advocates of abo- 
lition ; I only state a general law of human na- 
ture, whose illustration in some actual examples 
might be reasonably expected. If such there 
really be, they will probably £ake umbrage at 
what I have said, and thus furnish the illustration 
of the principle. 

An evil that has existed almost from the crea- 
tion, and for many years engaged the profoundest 
wisdom and philanthropy of statesmen and Chris- 
tians, is not of course to receive full attention 
in a single address. I crave your continued in- 
dulgence a moment longer to the subject of 
slavery, while I touch simply its relation to Chris- 
tian churches. The time is nearly gone by for at- 



43 

tempting to bring masonry into churches, as a test 
of communion ; though in its day it unspiritual- 
ized, divided, lacerated numerous churches, whose 
wounds still cease not to bleed. Slavery has now 
come to take the place of masonry in this respect, 
or to go hand in hand with it. Efforts will doubt- 
less be made to push it into all the northern 
churches, those even in which a slave owner nev- 
er was or will be, and most of whose members 
know next to nothing about the subject. They 
can by it only be diverted from their proper work, 
agitated, troubled, divided. But I mistake the 
wisdom and purity of these churches, if many of 
them admit it. 

Prescriptive abolitionism starts with the doc- 
trine, that under all circumstances to be a slave- 
owner, is a sin, even the sin of man-stealing. I 
deny the doctrine. Much as I loathe slavery, both 
as a system and in its particulars, I conceive this 
doctrine to be ultra and absurd. Some would 
place slavery and the use of alcohol on the same 
ground. Even if the civil relations of the use of 
alcohol and of slavery were the same, and if sla- 
very were among us at the north, as the use of al- 
cohol is, that we could see, understand, and intel- 
ligently deal with it, and if no injury could ac- 
crue to the spiritual interests of any from their 
immediate emancipation, as none could from the 
immediate disuse of alcohol, it would not follow 
that slavery has the same claims to be made a test 



44 

of communion with us, that the use of alcohol 
has. 

The scriptural terms of communion, those on 
which Congregationalism is based, are credible ev- 
idence of piety and agreement in Christian doc- 
trines. No person in whom those conditions are 
found, have we a right to exclude, for Christ does 
not exclude him. The church has no authority 
to inflict punishment. This is not her appropriate 
office. Temporary suspensions from communion, 
proceed on the ground, that, in case of a breach 
of covenant, evidence of Christian character is sus- 
pended, till the delinquent repents and makes con- 
fession. The instant he does this, the church is 
bound to receive him again to her communion. 
Those churches which have determined to ex- 
clude persons using or trafficing in alcohol, have 
proceeded upon the assumption that so much 
light is now shed upon the destructive nature of 
that article, that to persist in encouraging its use, 
is to evince the predominance of sensual appetite 
or of avarice over Christian principle, and thus to 
be without credible evidence of Christian charac- 
ter. Respecting this fact, however, churches are 
not agreed ; consequently some admit this test, 
while others do not. 

No civil laws exist against the disuse of alcohol. 
Such laws do exist against emancipation ; and it 
is a standing canon of the gospel, set up as an ev- 



45 

erlasting bulwark against radicalism, that we arc 
to be subject to the civil laws ; while we put forth 
a Christian influence upon community to make 
them better, if they need it. It is in this way, 
that we are to operate against the legalised sys- 
tem of slavery ; not by calling on our southern 
brethren to transgress the laws under which they 
live, and excommunicating them if they do not. 
Unless we have a specific and express command 
from God to the contrary, the general course of 
Christian duty towards both natural and civil laws 
is established and plain ; it is subjection. 

Neither has the church a right to legislate over 
the civil authorities, nor have the civil authorities 
a right to legislate ecclesiastically over the church. 
Unless therefore the civil assume the place of reli- 
gious authorities, even if laws be not such as some 
Christians might wish, it is yet our duty to render 
civil subjection to them, in a Christian manner, till 
we can by lawful means alter them, or remove our 
relation to them. 

Are we then to obey laws, if they require us to 
sin ? No laws, either of nature or of men, can 
make it our duty to sin. They cannot make it 
our duty to violate the generic moral law of God, 
or any of his express specific commands. Still 
civil laws may be such as to require us to do 
what, but for them, it might be sin to do. God 
looks upon the heart. He legislates over the 



46 

spirit. One law governs his empire. The generic 
law of love is developed to the eyes of the world, 
partly in acts of external conformity to certain 
rules modified by circumstances. Take for in- 
stance the command to keep the Sabbath holy. 
The spirit of that command, nothing can make 
it right for us to violate. Ordinarily it is a vio- 
lation of it, to labor on the Sabbath day. Such 
is the letter. ' Thou shalt not do any work.' 
But in a case of sickness, or of life and death by 
the unavoidable laws of nature, or in case of being 
in the navy or army, under a system of govern- 
ment demanding service on penalty of death, it 
is no necessary violation of the spirit and inten- 
tion of the divine command, to labor or to travel 
on that day. It is a case of compulsion by the 
laws of nature or the civil laws under which the 
person exists, to which he may submit with a 
heart true to God ; and to which it is ever his 
Christian duty to submit, till he can lawfully ex- 
tricate himself. It is believed that no person who 
has profoundly studied the spirit of the Christian 
Scriptures will controvert this position. It is only 
applying to morals the common sense principle, 
which long since passed into proverb, that c circum- 
stances alter cases.' It is a very different affair 
when human authorities attempt to legislate di- 
rectly over a man's religion, and require him to 
be an idolater, or an adulterer, or a liar, thereby 



47 

to test his allegiance to God. In the former case 
he may think the civil authorities err, in re- 
quiring the ship to sail or the army to march upon 
the Sabbath, and regret that they do not view 
the matter in the light that he does ; but in the 
latter case he knows that their express object is, 
to make him renounce the service of God. They 
have set themselves up in the place of God, they 
have exalted themselves above him, and the ques- 
tion now is, which shall receive his homage. Du- 
ty is then plain. By not thus distinguishing be- 
tween the doings of civil magistrates, legislating 
simply in their appropriate sphere over the civil 
interests of state, and undertaking to legislate out 
of their appropriate sphere over religion, some 
have supposed that every man is at liberty to set 
up his own peculiar religious notions against the 
civil laws. This would inevitably destroy all civil 
government, and with it all religion of course. 
The spirit of enlightened piety condemns it. 

Apply now the principle to the relation of our 
slave-holding brethren to the civil laws which for- 
bid emancipation. These laws are not religious 
edicts, put forth to test the allegiance of men to 
God. Their framers believe that slavery is Scrip- 
tural and right, just as the framers of the other 
laws supposed, believe that to require their sub- 
jects to sail the ship or to do military service upon 
the Sabbath, is right ; nor is it the Christian way 



48 

to convince them to the contrary, to encourage in- 
surrection and contempt of civil authority. We 
may think differently from most of our southern 
brethren, respecting the wrongfulness of slavery. 
Some of our southern brethren themselves may 
think differently ; but not till by a regular Chris- 
tian process can they effect the desired change in 
the laws, are they exonerated from the duty of 
civil subjection to them. Still may they and 
Ought they to treat their slaves in a Christian man- 
ner, in such manner as to fulfil towards them the 
law of love, in such manner as best to promote 
their temporal and everlasting interests. They 
owe a duty to their civil authorities, to obey them j 
to their civil laws, to make them better as fast as 
they lawfully can, if they need improving ; to 
their slaves, in the mean time, to seek their high- 
est good. All these things they can do. I know 
an excellent minister of the gospel, who is the 
owner of several slaves, all pious, all converted 
under his ministry, all members of his church, all 
loved by him as children, all loving him as their 
temporal and spiritual guardian and father ; some 
of them invalids and dependant upon him for sup- 
port. Are we then to anathematize him if he 
does not judge it to be his duty to emancipate 
them, in defiance of law, and circumstances, and 
consequences ? Members of his own church, 
whom he has begotten in Christ, and is covenant- 



49 

ed to watch over, shall he consign them to the 
ruthless hands of avarice and lust, to thrice mis- 
erable slavery for life ? Such is the case with 
many of our Christian brethren at the south. 
Never, till we are prepared to bid everlasting adieu 
to the Bible and to common sense, can we believe 
it to be our duty to exclude from our communion 
such brethren. Christianity knows no law supe- 
rior to this, to do to others what is for their best 
interest, temporal and eternal. And we know of 
no righteous authority for excluding a Christian 
brother, who is faithfully endeavoring to obey 
that law. 

Other important reasons exist, why anti-mason- 
ry and anti-slavery, should not come into churches 
as tests of communion. They excite feelings not 
merely religious, but also of a secular and political 
character. Anti-masonry appeals to the strong 
feelings of republicanism, jealousy of cabalism, 
dread of mischief in the dark against our liberties. 
Minds susceptible to such appeals become the 
tools of ambitious politicians, and thus is created 
a profane alliance of church and state. 

Anti-slavery appeals to a still stronger, more ex- 
citable and general feeling. New England blood 
boils with indignation against every name and 
likeness of oppression, for on no subject is feeling 
so easily excited as upon this. A man whose soul 
is as parched as August, or as icy as January, up- 
5 



50 

on other subjects, has both moisture and heat 
enough upon this. Any speaker who undertakes 
to stir up the passions of a common audience 
upon this subject, has an easy task before him. 
All this being associated with religion, many well 
meaning Christians will be drawn in with men of 
secular ambition, to constitute a civil party. A 
political wave will thus be put in motion, for aspir- 
ing demagogues to ride to glory on. These ten- 
dencies are denied by many, unforeseen by more, 
but they are unquestionable. Those churches 
over which proscriptive abolitionism assumes do- 
minion, will become political churches. Zeal they 
will have, burning zeal, but mingled with unhal- 
lowed fires ; a zeal not purely to promote the spi- 
ritual interests of men, but to support the political 
candidate of a party. 

In respect to terms of communion then, as well 
as all other matters, let Christian churches rest 
immovably on the foundation of Christ and his 
apostles. She wants nothing more, nothing less, 
than naked scriptural ground. Thus and thus 
only will her liberty and union be made perfect 
and perpetual. Her great essential work is, to 
put forth a spiritual blessing upon the world. Let 
her do this faithfully, and as fast as any practice 
or any civil law is ascertained to be hostile to the 
welfare of mankind, the spirit of the gospel in 
the hearts of men, not ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 



51 

will place it aside. Some excellent Christians be- 
lieve that to do military service, others that to use 
tobacco, others that to make use of fermented 
drinks, others that to eat animal food, others that 
to indulge in the narcotic stimulants of coffee and 
tea, are, or soon will be, sins of sufficient die to 
exclude men from the communion, as sincerely 
as the abolitionist or the anti-mason believes this 
of slave-holding, or of being an adhering mason. 

Permit every reformer to bring his cause into 
the churches to be legislated upon, and there are 
enough to keep them all in a perpetual broil. 
Now comes masonry, next slavery, next war ; 
now comes the wine and cider question, next the 
use of tobacco, next of tea and coffee, next of an- 
imal food j at length the question comes up, how 
much men must give, next how much they 
must do, and so on without end. They will 
stop, they gravely tell us, where sin stops, if they 
can ascertain where that is. All this is very well 
to be discussed, and preached, in proper place 
and measure, but not to be introduced into churches 
as a basis of discipline. This is not the way to 
purify churches. In the multiplicity of opinions, 
views and disputes, their unity, peace and purity 
would be destroyed, and their moral power over 
the world would cease forever. 

Reformers are always to act in subordination, 
never to assume the reins of government. Put 



52 

the reins of church and state into the hands of 
every innovator, and where would the world soon 
be ? Anarchy and wild disorder would become 
universal. Like the element of fire, reformers 
are excellent servants j but unless superhuman, 
they are dangerous masters. Their place is sub- 
jection to civil authorities, their way to act upon 
the world is, by diffusing the light and influence 
of their doctrines and examples, impelled always 
by a benevolent spirit. Such was the greatest 
Reformer that ever blessed the world j such have 
the few genuine reformers been. They have ris- 
en upon the earth, like suns of a calm clear light, 
waxing brighter and brighter, eclipsing other orbs 
only by their own superior illumination j sending 
a benign influence and a sweet savor of their good- 
ness down to distant generations ; while thousands 
of false reformers, like fiery meteors blazing for a 
season, have risen up to make angry and ambitious 
war on all surrounding bodies, have amazed and 
agitated society for a season, and then passed 
away to their own darkness and oblivion. By 
their fruits ye shall know them. Of all such re- 
formers as God approves and as bless mankind, it 
is characteristic, to be ' subject to principalities 
and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to 
every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be 
no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness to 
all men/ 



53 

The spirit of the gospel allows no professed re- 
former to rend the true churches of Christ, upturn 
states, subvert the order of society and the con- 
stitution of Providence ; it would pour its holy- 
blessing into them all. It does not set men to 
quarreling with their condition, but to mending 
their hearts and lives. It teaches us that to be be- 
nevolent, contented, happy, faithful, in the circum- 
stances in which we are, is the highest excel- 
lence, and the true preparation for something bet- 
ter. Hence the spirit of the gospel and the spirit 
of radicalism are very unlike. The one builds up, 
the other pulls down. The one aims directly to 
improve the character of men, as means to their 
more exalted condition, by which both objects are 
finally gained ; the other aims directly to exalt 
the condition of men, as means of their higher 
well being, by which both objects are finally 
lost. 

Far be it from me to discountenance the most in- 
tense zeal, in urging forward a good cause. An 
excellent writer has well said, " Enthusiasm is 
not a term of measurement but of quality" 
" Where there is no error of imagination, no mis- 
judging of realities, no calculations which reason 
condemns, there is no enthusiasm, even though the 
soul may be on fire with the velocity of its move- 
ment in pursuit of its chosen object." Neither 
would I place the supreme excellence in caution 
*5 



54 

Some men are so very cautious, that they do no- 
thing. They would not venture to lift a finger 
in any moral enterprise, lest they should disturb a 
lion. As little has the world to hope from men of 
nought but caution, as it has much to fear from 
men of nought but zeal. The most valuable re- 
formers are those equally and largely possessed of 
both. And yet some headlong spirits seem some- 
times to be needed, to go forward and trouble the 
elements, and compel indolent wisdom to wake up 
and attend to them. The times, in which we live, 
call not only for caution and prudence, but also for 
boldness and decision. 

In conclusion, let us glance at the civil prospects 
of our country. The restless spirit of which I 
have spoken, extensively pervades our civil insti- 
tutions. Perhaps it is nothing strange. In a 
country of free minds, just emancipated from op- 
pressive systems, nourished up amid the hard 
rocks, the invigorating skies, the bold and wild 
scenery of America ; ardent, active, enterpising ; 
it was perhaps to be expected, that many would 
rush to extremes as remote as possible from old in- 
stitutions and measures. The tendency of human 
sentiment to vibrate from one extreme to another 
is proverbial. Once it was all subordination, now 
it is all resistance ; once the throne must be wor- 
shipped, now every man may worship himself; 
once institutions were all infallible, now they are 



55 

all totally wrong ; once man must do nothing else 
but what seemed good in the eyes of the king, 
now they may do nothing else but what seemeth 
good in their own eyes. I would avoid these ex- 
tremes, believing that truth and interest lie between 
them. I hate oppression, I also hate violence. 
My feelings are entirely republican ; I think the 
gospel republican. I believe that governments are 
for men, and not men for governments ; yet I ab- 
hor radicalism. I think the gospel condemns it. 
I would not put forth the hand of violence, in ac- 
complishing even a desirable reform ; I believe there 
is a more excellent way. 

Our present danger is not that of leaning to- 
wards reverence and subjection, but the opposite. 
Sanguine temperaments and impatient spirits must 
have speedy vent ; and it may probably be expect- 
ed, that such will sweep the land with a heavy 
tempest setting towards revolution, and putting the 
stability of our institutions to a severe test. For it 
is notorious in all history, that when once a mind 
has lost its proper balance on subjects of general 
and strong interest, nothing usually avails to 
restore it, till its power of excitement has had 
opportunity to exhaust itself. Argument and dis- 
cussion cannot stop it ; increased knowledge can- 
not stop it ; — indeed intelligence often only adds 
to the impetuosity of its movements, as a planet 
breaking from its orbit will go off with a momen- 



56 

turn proportioned to its size. When a popular ex- 
citement is on, there is less of reason and more of 
passion than the intelligence of the community 
would authorize us to expect. Most minds go 
with the current. A current is now setting to- 
wards revolutionary measures. In its sweep, it 
will embrace, along with many ardent Christians, 
whose zeal is not wisely tempered, a numerous 
class of ecclesiastical and political malcontents and 
aspirants ; these will rush on together in a course 
of reckless adventure, checked by nothing but 
the exhaustion of their propelling forces. 

To the cautious observer of human nature and 
of current tendencies, it is believed that this re- 
mark will not savor too much of dubious proph- 
ecy. The spirit of man, when strongly excited, 
is a very boisterous element. It then makes ship- 
wreck of sound common sense ; it despises pru- 
dence ; it is blind to consequences. And is not 
the passion for excitement increasing? Are not 
many becoming morbidly fond of luscious intox- 
icating appeals to their feelings, respecting the 
cruelty of oppression, the glory of unbounded lib- 
erty, the transcendent excellence of equal rights 
and privileges j the folly and baseness of all that 
is past, the wisdom and beauty of all that is 
forth-coming ? Is there not a tendency to set laws 
at defiance, to annul penalties, to disparage civil 
authorities, to break up the constitution of society, 



57 

to get rid of all government ? Is there not also, 
with many, a growing hostility to everything old ? 
old laws ? old institutions ? old doctrines ? old 
men ? Change, change, of some kind, for better 
or worse, is eagerly sought. What observing mind 
can fail to see the convulsive sentiment heaving 
up, in various forms ? ' No matter for consequences ; 
we are not responsible for them. Let our national 
constitution be demolished, our union be dissolved, 
our ecclesiastical and civil fathers be silenced, our 
venerable magistrates of frosty locks be denounc- 
ed, our institutions of learning be abandoned, our 
churches be rent and destroyed, for oppression, 
folly, pusillanimity and sin, are in them all.' Let 
ambitious men, who thus think and speak, contin- 
ue to add such fuel to a numerous class of excita- 
ble and jealous minds, and we may behold a mass 
of furious passions let loose and boiling in the bo- 
som of our country as a great chaldron. 

Yet we are not prepared seriously to apprehend 
from this source any fatal disaster. These excite- 
ments and ferments are the natural ebullitions of 
youthful, ardent, inexperienced republicanism ; 
give them vent, and they will work harmlessly 
off. In the mean time, let every just occasion of 
complaint be put away. Let the welfare of every 
man be faithfully promoted. Especially let all 
Christians, whether in office, or out of office, 
whether high or low, whether at the south or the 



58 

north, of whatever name or sect, a slave-holder or 
a non-slaveholder, give first attention to se- 
curing AND ACTING OUT TOWARDS ALL MEN THE 
BENEVOLENT SPIRIT OF HIS DIVINE MASTER. This 

will perpetuate and bless our churches and our 
nation, in all their interests ; nothing else can. 
Would we enlarge, unite, and bless the churches, 
this is the way. Would we bring to an end 
all those public, national, legalized iniquities, which 
have gone up to heaven to invoke upon us the 
burning bolts of deserved wrath, this is the way. 
This spirit is the salt of the earth and the light 
of the world. It has the promise of the life that 
now is, as well as of that which is to come. It 
promotes solid growth in all that is excellent in 
character, all that is valuable in intellect, all that 
is useful in action. It makes good rulers and good 
subjects, good masters and good servants, good 
teachers and good pupils, holy churches, sound 
politics, glorious nations. Let it increase and as- 
sume full dominion, and perfect liberty and union, 
in both church and state, will reign over our coun- 
try, and over the world. 

Let the friends of religion and humanity consid- 
er this, and ponder well their duty. We live not 
only in a country, but in an age of extraordinary 
enterprise. A mighty spirit of action is gone out. 
The world is waking up and rushing rapidly to- 
wards some consummation. Science, arts, poli- 



59 

tics, morals, religion, are all heaving and agi- 
tating the minds of men. "What is to control and 
guide the moving elements to a happy result, but 
the spirit of the gospel, living and acting in its 
friends ? To them are these great interests en- 
trusted. If they descend from their lofty position, 
if they secularize Christianity, and profane its sacred 
institutions ; if they prove faithless to their vital 
relations to God, the Church, the spiritual reno- 
vation of men, the evangelizing of the world : if 
they become negligent of the doctrines and desti- 
tute of the spirit of the gospel ; if they leave the 
great work of the spiritual regeneration of men, 
and give themselves absorbingly up to every excit- 
ing subject that comes along ; to disputes, conten- 
tions, alienations, divisions, it demands no pro- 
phetic tongue to announce our doom. Increasing 
excitements and animosities will at length pro- 
duce a rending and breaking up of all established 
institutions ; this will of course be followed by a 
brief reign of anarchy, this by a dominion of spi- 
ritual and civil despotism, and this attended by a 
gloomy night of ignorance, sin, wo, setting back 
the predicted reign of the gospel perhaps for cen- 
turies. 

But we anticipate better things. The day- 
spring from on high hath visited our nation ; the 
sun of righteousness hath risen upon us, with 
healing in his wings, and we trust he will go forth 



60 

in his strength, till every cloud in our sky shall 
be overborne by his glories. Only let Christians 
be true to their duty, as above denned, and we can- 
not believe* that these churches, nourished by pray- 
er and acting under the holy impulses of humani- 
ty and religion, that these institutions, founded on 
the principles of religious and civil liberty, that 
this nation of Bibles and missions and Sabbath 
Schools, encompassing the earth with its blessings, 
are all to be sacrificed to the spirit of darkness and 
misrule. There is a voice that once said to the 
raging elements, ' Peace, be still,' and they obey- 
ed. That voice still lives. Over and above all, it 
will be heard, it will prevail. 

We may thus look for increasingly pure and 
powerful revivals of religion over our land, bring- 
ing thousands and millions under the spirit of the 
gospel. Through the ascendency of this spirit, 
with increase of light, may we look for the decline 
and final termination of those vices, which are the 
bane of religion, and the scourge and disgrace of 
our nation ; for temperance in the place of drunk- 
enness, for purity in the place of licentiousness, 
for a sanctified Sabbath, where now it is profaned, 
and for many salutary changes of opinion and 
practice, respecting the best mode and end of liv- 
ing. We may look for a vast increase of religious 
and secular knowledge, of Bibles, preaching, 
schools, all the instrumentalities for elevating the 



Gl 

intellect and reforming the heart. We may look 
for improved politics, wiser laws, better rulers. 
We may look for the end of all slavery. 

We will seek the elevation and happiness of the 
colored race, whether in America or Africa. We 
love them as brethren, we love them as our own 
complexion, we love them as immortal beings ; we 
mourn their debased and enslaved condition in 
America, and their still more debased and enslaved 
condition in Africa; we give our hearts and labors, 
so far as we can, to redeem that unhappy race from 
the thraldom of many centuries, and place them in 
honor among Christian nations. We love all our 
brethren engaged in their behalf; and although 
some may differ from us in judgment respecting 
the most Christian and effectual way to do them 
good, yet whenever they manifest the spirit of the 
gospel, we will never impeach the excellence of 
their intentions. 

In a word, we may thus look for the universal 
dominion of Him, who is predicted to become 
' the desire of all nations.' To Him may our na- 
tion be given, and his may it be, while the sun 
and moon endure. May his spirit be enthroned in 
the hearts of both rulers and subjects. Far be the 
day, when our magistrates shall cease to be honor- 
ed, our laws to be obeyed, our institutions to be 
sustained, by the strong voice of an intelligent 
and Christian people. Our Churches, may they 
6 



62 

be abiding as Messiah's throne. Our Union, while 
earth remains, may it stand, waving its bright 
banner in sight of all nations, a signal of redemp- 
tion and liberty to the world. Here may our 
children rise up in long succession, to honor the 
memory of their fathers. Unborn generations of 
America! Ye thronging millions, destined to 
people these vast regions, and walk over our sleep- 
ing dust, ye are the objects of our hopes, our 
prayers, our labors ! May, the blessings we enherit 
descend to you with increase. Here may you en- 
joy righteous laws, wise government, pure relig- 
ion, liberty and union, till the sun shall forget to 
shine, till the last star shall fade ; till the archan- 
gel's trump shall announce the end of time, and 
earth give place to heaven. 



SERMON III. 

CHRISTIAN DUTIES TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

Rom. 13 : 1. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. 
For there is no power but of God : the powers that be are or- 
dained of God. , 

It is manifest, that the universe must have a 
head. Order, gradation, rule, subjection, are Hea- 
ven's first law, pervading not less the moral than 
the natural world, and essential to virtue and hap- 
piness. The supreme head is God. He is the 
source of all natural power, the self-existent and 
only Potentate — all subordinate energy being de- 
rived from him, and by him sustained. He is also 
the source of all moral power, the only uncreated 
and supreme Excellence — all subordinate moral 
virtue springing from him the fountain, and being 
by him promoted among his creatures. He is con- 
sequently the head of all government : for gov- 
ernment is the union and emanation of natural and 
moral power, for the promotion of righteous con- 
duct. Hence ' there is no power but of God ; the 
powers that be, are ordained of God.' 



64 

Some theorists would resolve all society into its 
elements, and construct a social system de novo, to 
be founded merely on what they consider the 
original rights of men. Allying this theory to 
atheistic principles, philosophical speculators have 
gone on to advance doctrines radically subversive 
of all that supports civil government. They sup- 
pose men thrown together by accident, sustaining 
no obligatory civil relation till they voluntarily as- 
sume it. But finding mutual regulations conven- 
ient, they agree to adopt some form of government, 
not recognizing, however, any higher sanction than 
their own pleasure. 

Not to insist that this is, and ever must be, mere 
speculation — such a case never actually occurring 
— according to this theory government originates 
with men ; its existence or non-existence is at 
their rightful option, and to them only are rulers 
responsible. Every subject is an independent 
unit. All moral obligation to civil obedience being 
deduced a pactis — from the compact — the same 
that built, may also destroy. It is only for all or 
a majority to agree that they will not be governed, 
and they have perfect right not to be governed. 
Every man may do what is right in his own eyes. 

It is a true doctrine well expressed, that ' there 
is and mnst be in all governments a supreme, ir- 
resistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority, in 
which the jura sum/mi imperii, or the rights of 



65 

sovereignty, reside.' In republican governments, 
BO far as merely human agencies and relations are 
concerned, they reside in the people. But whence 
the obligation of the people, and to what authority 
are they amenable ? Is there no authority, no 
sanction higher than themselves ? 

Now while it is true that governments are for 
men and not men for governments, it is not true 
that governments originate with men and have no 
higher sanction than their own pleasure. 

Civil governments are of divine appoint- 
ment. They were instituted by God himself in 
the earliest age, and perpetuated and enjoined by 
his special authority. Civil relations are of di- 
vine constitution, as truly as are the domestic and 
social relations ; they are bom into the world with 
us, as truly as are our relations to parents or to 
property ; hence, in contemplating our original 
rights, we can no more divest ourselves of the one 
relation than of the other. If it is of divine ordi- 
nance, that by your birth you are brought into 
relation to family, and to secular interests, consti- 
tuting a domestic and social state, from which 
certain privileges accrue to you, and to which you 
owe certain duties ; not less is it of divine ordi- 
nance, that by your birth you are brought into rela- 
tion to civil government, from which certain priv- 
ileges accrue to you, and to which you owe cer- 
tain duties. If, therefore, when you prove false 
*6 



66 

to your domestic and social relations, you resist the 
ordinance of God, not less do you, when you prove 
false to your civil relations. ' Whosoever, there- 
fore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance 
of God, and they that resist shall receive to them- 
selves damnation. Wherefore, ye must needs be 
subject, not only for wrath, but also for con- 
science' sake ' — not orJy to avoid the wrath of the 
civil power, but also for the sake of conscience 
towards God. Render therefore to all their dues, 
tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom 
custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. 
Owe no man anything — no grudge, ill-will, envy, 
— on account of his power or station — ' but to 
love one another ; for he that loveth another hath 
fulfilled the law.' Such is the law of Christiani- 
ty as applied to our civil relations ; totally repug- 
nant to the selfish, restive, revolutionary spirit. 

The doctrine that denies the divine sanction of 
civil government, and only inculcates human 
rights as the original property of individuals, apart 
from the civil relation in which Providence has 
placed them, is the doctrine of atheistic radicalism ; 
the doctrine which overthrew the French nation, 
and more perhaps than any other cause endangers 
our own. Talk we of abstract rights, and primi- 
tive rights ? What have they to do in a theory 
of government founded on social rights ? Mr. 
Burke has remarked in language of sound moral 



G7 

science, ' The metaphysical rights of men enter- 
ing into common life, like rays of light which 
pierce into a dense medium, are by the laws of 
nature refracted from their straight line. Indeed 
in the gross and complicated mass of human pas- 
sions and concerns, the primitive rights of man un- 
dergo such a variety of refractions and reflections, 
that it becomes absurd to talk of them as if they 
continued in the simplicity of their original di- 
rection/ 

It was a sage observation of a trans-Atlantic 
statesman. * that the American people, though in 
many respects a spirited and noble race, have one 
capital fault ; they never know where to stopS 
We have in this country reacted strongly upon the 
oppressive systems of Europe ; we have pushed in 
the opposite direction nearly or quite as far as we 
can go. without sundering the body politic, and 
sacrificing our govermental relations. It is time 
that we begin to think more of individual sacri- 
fices to the general good and less of individual 
rights : more too must we think of the sacredness 
of our duty to civil government as an institution 
of God. 

But if some should still deny that justice can 
demand an infringement of individual rights for 
the public good, maintaining that it is every man's 
lawful privilege to stand apart from society, if he 
choose, giving and receiving nothing ; and hence, 



68 , 

that civil compacts are a matter of mere human 
expediency ', for the promotion of individual good, 
still they cannot escape from the duty to gov- 
ernment on which we shall insist ; for, expediency 
and right, elementarily and essentially considered, 
are the same. The great Roman statesman and 
philosopher labored well at this point in his De 
Orflciis, touching the honestum and the utile, and 
the tone of Cicero's morality on this subject in 
many respects approximates to that of the Bible. 
The essence of divine doctrine on this subject is, 
— That which best promotes the greatest good, 
is right ; the same is expedient. Whatever is 
right, is always expedient ; whatever is inexpedi- 
ent, is always wrong. Some distinguish between 
right and expediency, considering that to be right 
which God has expressly commanded, and that to 
be expedient which we are left to infer in the ex- 
ercise of our discretionary powers. It is a distinc- 
tion often important to be made, which these terms 
thus used denote ; but this view does not pene- 
trate and comprehend the essential morality of the 
subject. Whatever is essentially right, is right be- 
fore God commands it ; right because it is benevo- 
lent ; that is, because it promotes the greatest 
good. The same makes a thing right, which is 
left to our discretion. God himself, in all his com- 
mands and doings, acts upon the same principle 
which he requires us to act upon — benevolence. 



09 

There is no moral difference between what God 
has expressly commanded, and what we are left to 
infer in the filling up of the details of his com- 
mand : the only difference is, that if we have full 
confidence in the wisdom and benevolence of God, 
what he has expressly commanded loe know is for 
the greatest good, but respecting what depends 
upon our own discretion, we have less assurance. 
Yet in either case we are equally bound to do 
right — do what God judges, and therefore com- 
mands, and also what we judge, in the faithful ex- 
ercise of our discretion in things left to our judg- 
ment, is promotive of the highest good. Not even 
an infidel can deny this, unless he is prepared to 
deny all the obligations of benevolence, and main- 
tain that every man has as good right to injure 
as to benefit his fellow men. It is not natural but 
civil liberty of which we are to speak, when 
speaking of the rights of man in society. ' To 
do what we will, 5 says Dr. Paley, 'is natural lib- 
erty. To do what we will, consistently with the 
interests of the community to which we belong, 
is civil liberty ; that is to say, the only liberty to 
be desired in a civil state.' So that, whether you 
maintain that God is or is not at the head of civil 
government — that his express authority is or is 
not binding upon us to promote it — still, if you 
admit the importance of civil government to the 
greatest good of mankind, and the binding nature 



70 

of the divine law to promote that good, you must 
admit the moral claims of civil government upon 
us. Whether, therefore, you adopt the theory of 
Locke, that the moral claims of government rest 
upon the social compact ; or of Paley, that they 
rest upon the will* of God as collected from expe- 
diency ; or whether you admit the position we 
have now assumed, in either case, you come to the 
same result, though by a different rout. On the 
surer ground, however, does civil government rest, 
when, in addition to its authority deduced a pac- 
tis, or from its perceived utility, it has the direct 
and express authority of God to sustain it. 

I have no political theory to maintain respecting 
the best form of government ; and if I had, this 
were not the place to propose it. Neither do 
I espouse any political party. On account of 
my profession, I consider it my duty, as far as 
possible, to stand aloof from party politics ; yet 
am I not politically exiled or disfranchised. I sus- 
tain the same relations to civil government with my 
fellow citizens of other callings ; I have the same 
interests to be saved or sacrificed, and the same 
political rights. These, however, I consider it my 
duty to waive or to assume, as the interests of re- 
ligion may seem to demand. But I feel a profess-^ 
tonal obligation, to inculcate upon my fellow citi- 
zens what I conceive the Bible teaches respecting 
your duties to civil government. Such is my 
intention. I invoke your attention to a plain 



71 

scriptural view of the duties you owe to our na- 
tion. 

It is the duty of all magistrates, from the 
highest to the lowest, to exercise their function as 
the responsible agents of God, supremely seeking 
his glory in the welfare of his creatures. < They 
are the ministers of God to them for good.' They 
are amenable to their fellow men, but first and su- 
premely to God. He would have them faithfully 
seek the good of those over whom his providence 
has placed them. If they do otherwise, and 
abuse their trust, to selfish and iniquitous ends, 
they deserve and will ultimately receive the wrath 
of God and the rebuke of men. They are not 
required to disregard their own interest, but so to 
identify it with the public interest, over which 
they are the appointed guardians, as always to 
be actuated in their official doings by public and 
benevolent, never by private and selfish motives. 
A self-seeker in the person of a public guardian, 
is the just abhorrence of both God and man. 
A public magistrate ought to have a public 
soul; and if he cannot or will not expand it to 
the extent of the public interest, with whose 
guardianship he is honored, he ought forthwith 
to retreat back from the honors of public life with- 
in the circumference of his own little self. 
i While it is the duty of rulers perfectly to fill, 
it is equally their duty never to transgress their 



> 



72 

prescribed limits. All but absolutely despotic 
governments have different departments to balance 
the power. The legislative, executive, and judi- 
cial departments of our government, extending 
downwards from the national government to 
that of States and subordinate portions of States, 
are clearly defined, and the powers intrusted to 
all offices in each expressly limited. To trespass 
upon these limits, is to violate law and thus resist 
the ordinance of God ; for rulers as well as subjects 
may be law-breakers ; and whenever the}'- do thus 
trespass, they not only have no right to claim 
obedience to their assumed prerogatives, but they 
are liable to be punished. When rulers fill and 
only fill the offices assigned them, agreeably to 
the constitution or charter of the body politic in 
which they act, then and only then do they gov- 
ern lawfully, then and only then are their acts 
and doings obligatory on the people. 

In framing laws, it is their duty to have supreme 
regard to the law of God, while also they are to 
respect the pleasure of their constituents in the 
manner and degree prescribed ; and in case of con- 
flict between their understanding of tlie divine 
will and the prescribed human will, they ought in 
good faith and conscience to decline serving ; — 
for while a civil ruler ought never to £o against 
the law of God, he ought also never to play a 
trick upon his constituents. The one is treason 



73 

against God : the other against men, and is sub- 
versive of public confidence. All human laws 
should be only carrying out in detail and applying 
the gteat law of God, that law which aims terror 
and destruction to wickedness, and protection and 
blessing to goodness. This is the rule by which 
all legislators are morally bound to abide. When 
acting agreeably to the will of God, ' rulers are 
not a terror to good works, but to the evil.' 

In judging, expounding, and executing law, 
magistrates are required to be impartial — to show 
no respect to persons on account of wealth, rank, 
consanguinity, or prejudice ; to look rather to the 
spirit than the letter of law ; jealously to guard the 
interests of the poor and the helpless ; to deliver 
the oppressed ; to do for all men under all circum- 
stances as they would righteously wish others to do 
for them in the same ; that thus, as ' the ministers 
of God for good,' they may cause the laws to bear 
equally and benevolently on all men. ' It is not 
good to Jiavc respect to persons in judgment.' 
'Judge righteously between every man and his 
brother and the stranger that is with you.' 
'Thus saith the Lord, execute judgment and right- 
eousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand 
of the oppressor, and do no wrong; do no violence 
to the stranger, to the fatherless, nor to the widow, 
neither shed innocent blood.' < To do justice and 
judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sac- 
7 



74 

rifice.' ' Loose the bands of wickedness, undo the 
heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, break 
every yoke — then shall thy light break forth as 
the morning and thy righteousness as the noon- 
day.' Such are the duties of all rulers, whether 
in power by inheritance or by election. 

In a republican government, like ours, it is the 
duty of every man to do whatever he lawfully 
can to procure the election of competent and 
righteous 'men to office. If we regard the instruc- 
tions of the Bible, we shall elevate men of this 
description to all our public stations, from the su- 
preme magistrate of the nation down to the low- 
est town officer ; and to do otherwise, we shall 
consider a great wickedness threatening the sure 
wrath of God upon a people. Said Jethro to the 
great lawgiver of Israel, ' Hearken now to my 
voice, I will give thee counsel and God shall be 
with thee. Be thou for the people towards God, 
that thou mayest bring the cause to God. And 
thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and 
shalt show them the way in which they must 
walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover, 
thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, 
such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetous- 
ness, and place such over them, to be rulers of 
thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties 
and rulers of tens : and let them judge the people 
at all seasons. And it shall be that any great 



/ .1 

matter they shall bring to thee, but every small 
matter they shall judge. So shall it be easier for 
If. and they shall bear the burden with thee. 
If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee 
so. then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this 
people shall also go to their place in peace. So 
Moses hearkened to the voice of his father-in-law, 
and did all that he had said. And Moses chose 
able men out of all Israel, and made them heads 
over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hun- 
dreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And 
they judged the people at all seasons. The hard 
cases they brought to Moses, but every small mat- 
ter they judged themselves.' Such were the in- 
structions and such the rulers divinely sanctioned, 
under the reign of the greatest and best of rulers. 
In subsequent periods of Jewish history and in 
more popular forms of government, whenever the 
people became negligent, or of depraved practice 
in the elevation of their rulers, preferring unprin- 
cipled or weak men, God turned his indignation 
against them. For it was a perpetual and most sa- 
cred injunction of God, it was on the dying lips 
of Israel's most holy king, 'He that ruleth over 
men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.- Of 
course, all who by neglect or mal-suffrage allow or 
aid the elevation of bad or weak men to office, are 
guilty of sin against God, and of treason against 
the state. 



75 

When we notice the surprising looseness of sen- 
timent and practice prevalent among us on this 
subject, the indifference of many to the character 
of our rulers, and even the preference of some for 
bad men, well may we be alarmed. ' When the 
righteous are in authority the people rejoice ; but 
when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn. 3 
' Wo unto thee, O land, when thy king is a child.' 
1 The wicked walk on every side when vile men 
are exalted.' 'Judgment is turned into gall, and 
the fruit of righteousness into hemlock ; ' for then 
' is judgment turned away backward, and justice 
standeth afar off, truth is fallen in the street, 
and equity cannot enter.' Rulers are c the minis- 
ters of God,' in popular governments presented to 
him by the subjects, to rule over them ; will you 
then present to him unrighteous men for this im- 
portant trust ? Will you, in the use of your elec- 
tive franchise, have respect to party spirit, party 
politics, selfish passions, private ends, rather than 
the cause of righteousness and the good of the 
nation ? You can hardly do a greater sin. The 
sentiment ought to be sounded louder through 
the land and impressed on every conscience, Uni- 
versal suffrage, righteously exercised, is one of the 
greatest of human blessings ; abused, one of the 
greatest of curses. Monarchy itself is better than 
democracy, unless virtue and discretion preside at 
the polls. 



77 

Mistake not my meaning. I am not advocating 
an exclusive election of professedly religious men ; 
for it often happens that a man not professing re- 
ligion, yet of moral honesty and political integri- 
ty, may possess important qualifications for an 
office which no other attainable man possesses. 
But in our republican government, in which few 
plenary civil powers are vested in the hands of pub- 
lic officers, integrity of heart is more important 
than greatness of intellect ; for vast interests often 
depend upon the exercise of the benevolent princi- 
ple in ways not obvious, and in which men cannot 
be called to account. In nearly and perhaps all 
the incumbents of our public offices, the great 
thing to be sought is Christian principle. Indeed, 
without this, other qualifications often only render 
men in office the more dangerous. What are wit, 
learning, eloquence, and natural wisdom, uncon- 
trolled by benevolence, when exalted to stations of 
political trust, but instruments of danger to the 
people ? Knowledge is power to do evil, as well 
as good. In selecting a candidate for office, no 
inquiries should supersede these. — Is he a truly 
good man ? Does he fear God and seek the best 
interests of his country ? Is he ever found on the 
side of all good measures and institutions ? Is he 
a ' terror to evil doers and a praise to them that do 
well ? ' Does he give his influence in support of 
temperance ; of the Christian Sabbath ; of sound 
*7 



73 

morality ; in favor of whatever blesses and against 
whatever afflicts humanity ? Or is he in the day 
of trial a cringing and mercenary tool of popular 
favor ? Can you depend upon his integrity at all 
times. These are the questions first to be settled, 
and in the spirit of which every citizen is morally 
bound to act. Candidates of whom these ques- 
tions can be well answered, are the only men wor- 
thy to rule. I put it then to the conscience of 
all the enlightened friends of our country, and 
especially of Christians, if you can in good faith 
contentedly go about your private concerns, and 
withhold your countenance, influence, and votes 
from the election of such men to office ? Is it 
not as truly your duty to be at the polls in the 
appointed time and place, as to be in the sanctuary 
upon the Sabbath, or at the domestic altar morning 
and evening ? Have you a right to presume that 
God will answer your prayers for Christian rulers, 
if you use not the constituted means to obtain 
them ? 

It is our duty to practice and encourage obedi- 
ence to the civil authorities. The Jews entertain- 
ed scruples respecting the lawfulness of obeying 
heathen magistrates; 'This,' says Dr. Scott, in 
his notes on the 13th of Romans, ' gave occasion 
to turbulent spirits to excite scandalous and ruin- 
ous insurrections j and the same spirit might creep 
in among Christians, to the great disgrace of the 



79 

gospel ; as in later times, ecclesiastics, especially 
in the church of Rome, have claimed the most 
exorbitant exemptions in this particular. The 
apostle therefore used the most decisive language 
on this subject ; — every soul, or person, whether 
a Jewish or Gentile convert, a private Christian or 
a minister, was absolutely required to be subject 
to the laws and edicts of those, who held authority 
in the state ; that is, in all things lawful. The 
' higher powers ' at Rome were not only heathen, 
but usurping, oppressive, and even persecuting 
governors j and Nero, who was then emperor, was 
a monster of cruelty, caprice, and wickedness, al- 
most unparalleled in the annals of mankind : yet 
no exception was made on that account. Chris- 
tians were required to look above such concerns, 
and to consider God as the source of all authority, 
and civil government as his appointment for the 
benefit of mankind ; — the several forms of gov- 
ernment, prevailing in different places, were to be 
regarded as the effect of his superintending provi- 
dence, and the persons raised to authority as his 
deputies. It was therefore incumbent on all 
Christians to render a prompt and quiet obedience 
to those governors, under whom their lot was cast, 
patiently submitting to the hardships, and thank- 
fully receiving the benefits thence resulting, with- 
out objecting to the vices of the constitution, the 
administration, or the rulers, as an excuse for 



80 

refusing subjection.' — It is evident that the apostle 
did not mean to determine the divine right of abso- 
lute monarchy, or exclusively of any form of govern- 
ment ; but to inculcate subjection to the ruling 
powers of every place and time in which belie- 
vers lived.' — 'Whatever be the form of the ex- 
isting government, or the way by which it was es- 
tablished ; while it continues to exist, it must be 
regarded and submitted to as the appointment of 
Providence.' I have given you the sentiments of 
Dr. Scott thus full, in his own language, as a sum- 
mary of what I find to be the sentiments of the 
most learned, pious, and judicious divines gene- 
rally respecting the doctrine of the Bible on this 
highly important subject — the duty of subjection 
to the civil authorities. And indeed who that 
faithfully studies the Bible, whether the Old Tes- 
tament, or the instruction and example of Christ 
and of his apostles, can question that such is 
the will of God; the same as enjoined by St. 
Paul to Titus, ' Put them in mind to be subject 
to principalities and poioers, to obey magistrates, 
to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of 
no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing 
all meekness to all men.' 

But here two questions start. — The first is, 
Are we bound to obey magistrates, if they are 
wrongfully invested with civil power ? On this 
point Mr. John Locke remarks in his ' Treatise on 



81 

Government, 5 quoted also by Dr. Scott, ' Whether 
we take powers here in the abstract for political au- 
thority, or in the concrete for the persons actually 
exercising political power and jurisdiction, the sense 
will be the fame. How men come by a rightful 
title to this power, or who has this title, the apos- 
tle is wholly silent, and says nothing of it. To 
have meddled with that, would have been to decide 
of civil rights, contrary to the design and business 
of the gospel, and the example of our Savior, who 
refused meddling in such cases, with this decisive 
question. ' Who made me a judge or a divider over 
you ? ; On the same point Dr. Scott also remarks, 
1 The words rendered ' the powers that be,' or 
1 the existing authorities,' seem expressly intended 
to exclude all such inquiries. ' — ' Perhaps nothing 
involves greater difficulties in very many instan- 
ces, than to ascertain to whom, either individually 
or collectively, the authority justly belongs ; or in 
fact, what constitutes a lawful title to authority. 
If then the most learned and intelligent men find 
insuperable difficulties, and differ widely in their 
opinions respecting this subject, how shall the bulk 
of the people be able to decide it ? And if Chris- 
tians are first to determine concerning the right 
by which their rulers possess and exercise authori- 
ty, before they think themselves bound to obedi- 
ence, they must very commonly indeed be engaged 
in opposition to the existing authorities. But the 



S2 

apostle's design was to mark out the plain path of 
duty to Christians, however circumstanced.' Such, 
on examination, you will find to be the opinion of 
the more intelligent Christians and divines gene- 
rally, who have written upon this subject. Who 
that considers it well, will question its soundness? 
The next inquiry is, Are we bound to obey ru- 
lers, if they set themselves up against God, require 
us to renounce allegiance to him, and issue edicts 
designedly contravening the express commands of 
the Bible ? Certainly not. In that case they 
forfeit their divine right as civil rulers to govern 
us ; they are then no longer 'the ministers of-God 
to us for good.' Such was the case when Daniel 
refused to renounce the service of God at the 
king's edict, and when the apostles refused to diso- 
bey the express command of God to preach the 
gospel. But perhaps no point has been more mis- 
taken and abused, to the great detriment of relig- 
ion, than this. Christianity does not allow resis- 
tance of the civil power, lawfully exercised, in 
any instance. Moreover to all uninspired subjects 
of civil government, it is important to consider, 
that the sum of the divine law is love ; that is, a 
supreme regard to the glory of God, in the welfare 
of his creatures ; that particular rules are not laid 
down extensively in the Bible, both because they 
would make that book too large, and also impair 
our moral agency, by reducing our discipline too 



S3 

much to infancy ; thai the best way to promote 
the welfare of mankind, in respect to unspecified 
particulars, varies with circumstances, always call- 
ing for our discretionary and prudential powers; 
that along with human frailty is also human de- 
pravity, in the form of self-will and self-confi- 
dence, to be guarded against, making it the Chris- 
tian duty of every man to set up his religious opin- 

in opposition to civil authorities with much 
circumspection and delay, lest he fall into the vor- 
tex of fanaticism and the condemnation of the 
devil : that civil government is of divine appoint- 
ment, itself religiously binding upon us and es- 
sential to the very existence of all society and 
all religion : and that consequently every man is 
bound to yield his private opinions, so far forth 
as to render implicit obedience to the civil power, 
in all things not expressly and incontestably for- 
bidden in the Bible. Allow every man to set up 
his own religious notions, whatever they be, in 

sition to the civil power, and we are exposed 
to as many laws and kings as there are dreams 
in the human brain. Multitudes are at once set 
loose from all civil law. It seems to me that 
every man who looks at this subject, in the light 
of Scripture and of common sense, must see, 
that in order to have any such thing as govern- 
ment, there must be some yielding of private 
opinions, as long as private opinions are so va- 



84 

rious ; and that consequently religious principle 
will sometimes authorize a man, for the sake 
of his relation to civil government, to do what, 
but for that relation, he might think it wrong 
to do. For instance, the man who thinks all 
war unjustifiable, might think it wrong, apart 
from his relation to civil government, to do mil- 
itary service, or pay a tax ; but, in considera- 
tion of that relation, he may Christian! y judge 
it. his duty to do it. So of many other things. 
Now if you start back from this, with the pop- 
ular cry that right is eternally right, and wrong 
eternally wrong, independent of law and govern- 
ment, I reply, that elementarily and abstractly 
considered, so they are ; but as applied in par- 
ticular practice, that is right, which goes to pro- 
mote the greatest good of mankind, that is wrong, 
which goes against it. God's commanding thus 
and so does not make a thing right or wrong, he 
commands thus and so because it is right or 
wrong ; and it is right or wrong, not from any 
intrinsic character in the metaphysical idea — for 
such an idea is a mere nihility — but because it 
does or does not tend to promote the greatest good. 
And so vital is civil government to that good, that 
in all cases when acting in its own appropriate 
sphere, and not setting itself religiously up in the 
place of God expressly to break our allegiance to 
him, God has made it right and a duty for us 



S5 

to sustain and obey it. And most obviously, if 
to the Christian subjects of even heathen govern- 
ments, unqualified subjection to the civil laws was 
enjoined in the strongest terms, as in our text, 
needs there any inference respecting the duty of 
the subjects of professedly Christian govern- 
ments ? 

I have dwelt the longer on this, because there 
is an increasing class of men among us of loose 
mind and character, who think it a very venial 
and pretty thing to trample the civil laws under 
their feet, regardless of the ruin that must come 
of it ; and because this class of men, instead 
of being rebuked, as they should be, are even en- 
couraged, by a mistaken zeal in some Christians, 
who also think with them, though for other rea- 
sons, that it is a small matter to contemn the civil 
power, and even make a religious conscience of 
doing it ! Well may we seriously fear, that what 
with a large class of irreligious men of no con- 
science on the one hand, and a class of religious 
men of misguided conscience on the other, con- 
spiring against the civil power, unless spesdy and 
efficient means prevent, the dreadful work will ere 
long be done ; the civil power will fall, and in its 
fall crush the nation ! God forbid that Chris- 
tians put another finger to this awful work ! Let 
the hands of the Church be wiped of this foul 
stain. If our government is doomed to perish, let 
8 



86 

it fall by other hands than theirs, l who were chos- 
en in Christ, that they should be holy and without 
blame before him in love. 7 

Reformers themselves must reform. Behold 
some of the advocates of immediate abolition, on 
the one hand, urging forward their reform in a 
manner defying constitutional rights, and reck- 
less of consequences, and some of their opposers, 
on the other hand, chuckling at their hard rubs, 
their rebuke of rods, the tar and feathers, and 
even the halters, which, in their straight-forward 
zeal, they sometimes encounter from men acting 
equally in opposition to the civil power. Behold 
some of the emissaries of the pope, on the one 
hand, muzzling our press, and in various ways 
encroaching step by step upon the spirit of our 
free institutions, aiming to plant the iron foot of 
his ecclesiastical majesty upon us, and some of his 
enemies, on the other hand, stirring up violence 
and hurling the torch upon his dwelling, in equal 
resistance and peril of the civil power, — and a 
similar course in various other dividing, agitating 
and strife-stirring matters. Men at either extreme, 
alike zealous for good or for evil, taking law and 
judgment and execution from the hands ordained 
by God, into their own hands ! Contempt of con- 
stitutional rights, of civil authorities, of national 
and social compacts, and even of private interests, 
has within a few years risen to an astonishing 



87 

pitch of boldness among us; — yes, in some public 
teachers and journals, even under the white flag of 
Christianity; — all which is being responded to, 
by an equal menace of stripes, and brick-bats, and 
Lynch law, and unceremonious gibbets, from the 
opposite quarter. To what, are we coming ! We 
can scarcely take up a newspaper, without some 
fresh admonition that the contempt of civil au- 
thority, which hangs on so many burning lips, 
and darkens so many public journals, and the con- 
sequent reign of mobocracies and riots, is increas- 
ing in the land with alarming speed.* How far 

* Dr. Paley remarks, ' A protestant establishment in this coun- 
try may have little to fear from its popish subjects, scattered as 
they are throughout the kingdom, and intermixed with the protes- 
tant inhabitants, who yet might think them a formidable body, if 
they were gathered together into one county. The most frequent 
and desperate riots are those which break out amongst men of the 
game profession, as weavers, miners, sailors. This circumstance 
makes a mutiny of soldiers more to be dreaded than any other 
insurrection. Hence also one danger of an overgrown metropolis, 
and of those great cities and crowded districts, into which the 
inhabitants of trading countries are commonly collected. The 
worst effect of popular tumult consists in this, that they discover to 
the insurgents the secret of their own strength, teach them to de- 
pend upon it against a future occasion, and both produce and dif- 
fuse sentiments of confidence in one another, and assurances of 
mutual support. Leagues thus formed and strengthened, may over- 
awe or overset the power of any state ; and the danger is greater, 
in proportion as from the propinquity of habitation and intercourse 
of employment, the passions and counsels of a party can be circu- 
lated with ease and rapidity. It is by these means, and in such, 
situations, that the minds of men are so affected and prepared, that 
the most dreadful uproars often arise from the slightest provocations, 
When the train is laid, a spark will produce the explosion,' 



88 

distant suppose ye our ruin is, if things continue 
to go on thus ? Is not this the very way in which 
the modified governments of the Old World went 
down to perdition ? Are you not aware, that the 
subjects of republican governments never incline 
to set upwards towards higher deference and sub- 
mission to the powers that be ? They always in- 
cline the other way. The reason is manifest ; 
there are more who wish to rule, than who wish 
to obey. Such is our nature. It comes in great 
measure of the jealousy of ambitious competitors, 
preferring even revolution to subordination ; and 
more especially, in elective governments, from the 
greater envy of the elevation of natural equals, 
than of the continued elevation of hereditary 
power. 

The various kinds of government have their 
peculiar evils, against which it is our special duty 
to guard. Were I living under an oppressive 
monarchy or aristocracy, I should probably preach 
in a somewhat different tone, and aim my influ- 
ence in another direction. ' The evils of a repub- 
lic,' says Dr. Paley, l are dissension, tumults, fac- 
tion ; the attempts of powerful citizens to possess 
themselves of the empire ; the confusion, rage 
and clamor, which are the inevitable consequen- 
ces of assembling multitudes, and of propounding 
questions of state to the discussion of the peo- 
ple,' &c and to this may be added, an ever-grow- 



89 

ing impatience of all subordination, all authority, 
all government. Read the history of the ancient 
Grecian and Roman states, of the more modern 
states of Germany, Switzerland, and France, and 
you will not fail to see that the way in which 
they went to ruin, is the very way in which we 
are going. Continue to contemn the civil power, 
deny the divine origin and sanction of civil gov- 
ernment, assert the pre-eminence of individual 
rights, and at length the depraved and warring el- 
ements of human nature become too boisterous 
and violent to be controlled. 

Let all our citizens then be well instructed in 
respect to the duty and importance of obeying the 
laws. Especially let all Christians consider it a 
part of their religion, as truly as prayer. The 
same divine authority which says, ' Pray always,' 
says also, ' Submit yourself to every ordinance of 
man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king 
as supreme, or unto governors that are sent by 
him, for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the 
praise of them that do well.' And even if there 
be errors in law and judgment, they are to be cor- 
rected, as a general rule, not by violence, but by 
the gradual operation of a spiritual and moral in- 
fluence upon the minds of men. In respect to the 
•duties of repentance and faith, Christ and his 
apostles were immediatists of the highest stamp ; 
but in respect to the bearing of the gospel on 



90 

civil institutions, they were gradualists. They al- 
ways obeyed the laws, and paid deference to 
rulers. 

If we would have better laws, we must better 
obey those we now have. If we would have wiser 
and more righteous rulers, we must conduct more 
wisely and righteously towards those now in au- 
thority. This is God's way of reforming the 
world. Let it not be forgotten, that to attempt to 
accomplish even a good end in a wrong way, is 
to do wrong ; and that the right way to benefit 
our country, is always the way of subjection to its 
laws. Let this sentiment prevail through the land, 
and be engraven on every heart; then may we 
hope that our government will become more and 
more Christian and permanent ; that subjects and 
rulers and laws will grow better together ; that 
wisdom and knowledge will become the stability 
of our times, and the fear of the Lord our treas- 
ure.' 



SERMON IV. 

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

It is our duty to shore respect to rulers, and also 
to conduct towards all men according to their rank 
and calling. We ought to raise up a public sen- 
timent, that will palsy the licentious tongue, and 
also condemn to the shelf such writings as deal 
in tones of wanton slander of men in authority, 
aiming to bring them into contempt. ' Put them 
in mind to speak evil of no man, to be no brawl- 
ers, but gentle, showing all meekness to all men.' 
The same religion which says, 'Fear God,' says 
also, ' Honor the king.'' 'Thou shalt not revile 
the gods, nor curse the rulers of thy people? 
1 Curse not the king, no not in thy thought.' 
' Render to all their dues, honor to whom honor 
is due? ' The Lord knoweth how to reserve the 
unjust to the day of judgment to be punished ; 
but chiefly them that despise government, and 
are not afraid to speak evil of dignities? The 
very strongest language of rebuke do the Scrip- 
tures bestow upon such. l These filthy dreamers, 
despise dominion and speak evil of dignities.' 



92 

But the ruler is a bad man, as you think. What 
then ? He is not worse than the devil, and you 
are not higher than the archangel ; ' yet Michael 
the archangel, when contending with the devil, 
durst not bring against him a railing accusation, 
but said, The Lord rebuke thee.' 

But you have an excellent motive ; the ruler 
is a bad man, in your estimation, and you wish to 
bring him into contempt among the people, to pre- 
vent his re-election. Granting that, you mistake 
the right way to prevent it. You only exasperate 
his adherents to greater desperation in his behalf, 
and also incur the hazard of producing the reac- 
tion of an awakened sympathy from his opposers. 
You take the surest way to promote him ; and 
that too under the most inauspicious circumstan- 
ces. Besides, you go directly athwart the instruc- 
tions and examples of the Bible. Mark, the res- 
pectful conduct of Nathan towards David, of 
Daniel towards Darius, of Jesus Christ towards 
civil magistrates, of Paul towards Agrippa. l It 
is written,' said Paul, even when suffering unlaw- 
fully from the hands of his ruler, ' Thou shalt 
not speak evil of the rulers of thy people.' How 
are these divine admonitions forgotten among us ! 
It would seem that some even think they are doing 
God service, when reviling the rulers. • 

The wrong doings of rulers are not to be coun- 
tenanced; or concealed j they ought to be suitably 



93 

exposed, and it is one of the many benefits of our 
newspapers, that they help to guard our public 
offices from abuse, by holding the faults of their 
incumbents before the public eye ; and I am hap- 
py to bear my testimony concerning many, that 
they do it in a becoming manner. But this is far 
from true of all. There is a respect due to men 
in office, for their office' sake, even in exposing 
their faults. They ought to be exposed in a way 
to avoid, as far as possible, degrading the dignity 
of their stations. 

Jealousy and contempt of envied conditions of 
every kind, are also expressly condemned in the 
Bible. The everlasting echo of liberty and equal- 
ity, fomenting a spirit of envious alienation to- 
wards men of office, rank, or profession, aided by 
the speculations of the atheistic philosophers, con- 
tributed to pave the way to the French Revolution. 
In animadverting upon it, in a letter to a gentle- 
man in Paris, Mr . Burke remarks — ' We are not 
the converts of Rousseau ; we are not the disci- 
ples of Voltaire ; Helvetius has made no progress 
among us. Atheists are not our preachers ; mad- 
men are not our lawgivers. We know that we 
have made no discoveries ; and we think that no 
discoveries are to be made, in morality ; normally, 
in the great principles of government, nor in the 
ideas of liberty, which were understood long be- 
fore we were born, altogether as well as they will 



94 

be after the grave has heaped its mould upon 
our presumption, and the silent tomb shall have im- 
posed its laws on our pert loquacity. In Eng- 
land we have not yet been completely emboweled 
of our natural entrails ; we still feel within us, 
and we cherish and cultivate those inbred senti- 
ments which are the faithful guardians, the active 
monitors of our duty, the true supporters of all lib- 
eral and manly morals. We have not been drawn 
and trussed, in order that we may be filled, like 
stuffed birds in a museum, with chaff and rags and 
paltry blurred shreds of paper about the rights of 
man. We preserve the whole of our feelings 
still native and entire, unsophisticated by pedantry 
and i?ifidelity. We iiave real hearts of flesh and 
blood, beating in our bosom. We fear God ; we 
look up with awe to kings ; with affection to par- 
liaments ; with duty to magistrates ; with rever- 
ence to p? , iests ; and with respect to nobility. 
Why ? because it is nature to do thus ; because 
all other feelings are false and spurious, and tend 
to corrupt our minds, to vitiate our primary morals ; 
to render us unfit for rational liberty ; and, by 
teaching us a servile, licentious, and abandoned 
insolence, to be our low sport for a few holidays, 
to make us perfectly fit for, and justly deserving 
of slavery, through the whole course of our lives.' 
How much the reverse of this are ive becoming. 
How unlike 'looking up with awe to kings/ to 



95 

see the person of even the chief magistrate of 
the nation caricatured and exposed at every cor- 
ner, looking more like a monkey than a human 
being ! How unlike ' looking up with affection 
to parliament,' to see members of our national con- 
gress, set publicly forth in the contemptible light 
of a kitchen cabinet, caricatured to the eyes of 
the laughing world in the most ridiculous man- 
ner ! How long, at this rate, will our children 
respect our national councils, as we were taught to 
respect them. How are we receding from that 
spirit which delights to do ' homage to magistrates, 
reverence to priests, respect to rank and profession. 5 
Let us go on thus, inculcating this contempt of 
office, rank, men and manners, upon the minds of 
the rising generation, and that inbred sentiment of 
respect, which is the support of all virtue, religion, 
and government, will be utterly broken down, 
and our civil and social institutions will fall with 
it. Our fathers had that sentiment ; they got it 
from the Bible ; they learned it also from the in- 
stitutions of the Old World, in which are some 
things Christian and good after all. They cherish- 
ed it ; they inculcated it upon the minds of their 
children — with what diligence, we still remem- 
ber ! Let us beware how we depart from it. 

Do I then encourage an aristocracy ? By no 
means ; if by aristocracy you mean also a monop- 
oly. I would have the way to distinction equally 



96 

open to all. I love the free and equal institutions 
of my country ; none other in the world so well. 
It is for this reason I wish to preserve them. No- 
thing is more grateful, than to see a man rising by 
virtue and industry from small beginning to emi- 
nence ; while at the same time nothing is more 
painful, than to see him rise there but to be envied, 
maligned, abused. I would have every man free 
to choose his calling ; not only so, but encouraged 
by all lawful means to do his best in it. But 
having chosen his calling, let every man be satis- 
fied with it, contented with the relation into which 
it brings him to society, and count it his true ho- 
nor to fill his station well, whatever it be. 

Equally does the Bible rebuke the spirit of 
haughty insolence and contempt towards men of 
inferior rank. l Mind not high things, but conde- 
scend to men of low estate.'' Mark the example of 
Christ. Both individual and social happiness are 
promoted by variety of rank and calling, and the 
due regard of the members of all to each other. 
The social and political body, as truly as the ec- 
clesiastical, is a perfect whole, all of whose parts 
are essential. ' For the body is not one member, 
but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not 
the hand, I am not of the body ; is it therefore 
not of the body ? And if the ear shall say, Be- 
cause I am not the eye, I am not of the body ; is 
it therefore not of the body ? If the whole body 



97 

were an eye, where were the' hearing ? If the 
whole were hearing, where were the smelling ? 
But now hath God sot the members every one of 
them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And 
if they were all one member, where were the 
body ? ' ' But now are they many members, yet 
but one body. . And the eye cannot say to the 
hand, I have no need of thee ; nor again the head 
to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much 
more those members of the body which seem to 
be more feeble, are necessary.' — ' There should be 
no schism in the body; but the members should 
have the same care one for another. And thus if 
one member suffers all the members surfer with 
it, or if one member is honored, all the members 
rejoice with it.' Never was there drawn a more 
perfect picture cf the relative duties and necessi- 
ties of society. Neither essential honor or happi- 
ness depend upon office or rank, but only upon 
doing well the duties of the calling in which we 
are ; conducting towards all, as we would have 
them do to us, and tendering to all the respect 
due. 

Away then with the false ambition of external 
equality and sameness. Away too with the spirit 
of detraction, engendered by lust of something 
not our own. Let us delight to pay ' honor to 
whom honor is due.' Let us even be affectionately 
jealous for the respect of those in authority over 
9 



98 

us. Let us inculcate the same upon our children. 
Never in their hearing, let us allow ourselves to 
1 speak evil of dignities.' We ought to be very- 
patient towards what we suppose to be errors in 
rulers, practicing towards them that ' charity which 
hopeth all things and endureth all things,' always 
considering that they may see sufficient reasons 
for the course they pursue which we cannot. 
Their eye is in a different position from ours. 
Acting in a public capacity, they may be expected 
to see things in their comprehensive relations, as 
we do not. Especially should we be slow to im- 
peach their motives. We ought to identify our 
interest with theirs, as they ought also theirs with 
ours ; to be proud of their reputation ; to sympa- 
thize with their responsibilities ; and never to add 
to their burden, in the present state of our coun- 
try, far from enviable. 

This is the way to have good rulers. Never 
was it known that the people who treated their 
rulers thus, were cursed with bad ones. It was 
only when the Israelites became abusive towards 
their rulers, that ' God sent them a king in his 
W rath ' — a bad king to curse them. 'To the 
froward, he will show himself fro ward.' Com- 
plain we of our rulers ? We have better than we 
deserve. Let us reform ourselves. It is impious 
to expect elections that will furnish us better rul- 
ers, till we conduct better towards those we now 



99 

have. Unless we reform, it will come to pass that 
no respectable man will accept of our offices. Not 
only so, but if we countenance this vulgar con- 
tempt of rulers, a large portion of our voters will 
in their wisdom judge that contemptible men are 
the right men for rulers — the very men they 
ought to elect. Let our conduct say that rulers 
are men to be respected ; then will the sentiment 
prevail, that none ought to be elected but men 
worthy of respect. 

We should endeavor by all possible means to 
perpetuate and strengthen our national ujiion, 
and countenance nothing tending to its dissolution. 
A great nation, spread, over so vast a territory, 
comprising very diverse interests and characters, 
demands no trilling attention to this duty. As our 
danger of alienation is great, so is our duty to 
guard against it proportionably great. In every view, 
a dissolution of our union were infinitely to be de- 
plored. Even if one fair line of separation could 
be drawn between the north and the south, leaving 
each half entire, what were the result ? — The 
moral and religious influence of the north upon the 
south, and of the south upon the north, greatly 
abated or destroyed ; also all the connecting social 
and civil power annihilated ; a wall of separation 
high as heaven as to mutual good, but unfortu- 
nately no physical barrier to animosities and wars j 
the chains of everlasting bondage riveted on the 



100 

slaves, or the slaves rioting on the blood of their 
masters ; a social and political body sundered in 
the midst, exposing either half to prolonged suf- 
fering or instant death, — all to the incalculable 
detriment of the religious interests of our coun- 
try and of the world. Nor is this all. A peace- 
ful division of this nation into two entire and 
sound parts, the states of each resolving them- 
selves into a federal compact, is not to be expected 
on any principles of human prophecy. Once sun- 
der the bond that now holds us in one, and it is to 
be apprehended that there is enough of ungovern- 
able energy in these elements to break us into a 
hundred fragments. Kings and demagogues would 
multiply in the land, like the frogs and locusts of 
Egypt. Like ancient Greece, we might become 
severed into numerous petty states, headed by am- 
bitious despots and aristocrats, to worry and waste 
each other till overwhelmed by a common ruin. 
True is the maxim on which our fathers acted, 
1 United we stand ; divided we fall.' 

We ought then to cherish our union as the 
apple of our eye, and to guard against every form 
of encroachment upon the spirit of our constitu- 
tion. Let every state have its entire rights, so far 
as it is sovereign ; while its subjection to the fed- 
eral compact is imperiously demanded, so far as 
it is constitutionally subject. Let nothing be done 
or countenanced, either by state legislation or by 



101 

private associations, entrenching upon the federal 
union or upon the rights of states. 

Some suppose that what they call moral means, 
of whatever kind or degree, are of course lawful. 
There is no greater mistake. For what mean they 
by moral means ? Associations, books, pamphlets, 
papers, preaching, and other public appeals to the 
passions ; — of all means, in popular governments, 
most dangerous, most wicked, most to be dreaded, 
when misdirected. l But there is sin in my neigh- 
bor, and I must remove it.' And are you sure, 
that you are the person to do it ? Admitting you 
are, beware then that in your attempts to remove 
his sin, you do not commit a greater yourself. 
' But he is enduring a very sore evil, and benevo- 
lence summons me to interpose.' Consider that 
even benevolence is not always benevolent. Your 
neighbor has a wen in his side. It is a sore evil, 
to be sure, and benevolence would fain relieve it ; 
but is every quack therefore justified in thrust- 
ing his coarse knife rudely into the patient's side, 
at the hazard of his life ? He may make the sore 
worse ; he may occasion unnecessary irritation and 
inflammation ; he may even open a large artery and 
produce instant death. Many things he may do 
much less benevolent, than not to obtrude his 
services. Or perhaps your neighbor has a mote 
in his eye. Truly it were benevolent, skilfully 
to remove it ; but before you attempt the delicate 
*9 



102 

task, take first the beam from your own eye ; then 
will you see clearly to take the mote from your 
neighbor's eye. ' But surely I ought to set my- 
self at once to the correction of all sin.' Doubt- 
less ; but not in a sinful way — not in a way that 
disregards consequences and produces more sin than 
you prevent. ( But if I only do right, I am not 
responsible for consequences.' Ah ! — If you only 
1 do right.' That is begging the point. As though 
consequences did not enter into the very question 
of right. ' But I have a glorious text to stand 
upon.' ■ Justitia fiat ; ruat coslum' l Let right be. 
done ; though heaven fall.' A truly good text 
it is. Nothing is better, in its true import ; but as 
applied by some, it has more of the savage than of 
the Christian. Yes, so say I, let right be done, 
come what may. But what is right. In all cases 
when we have not express direction from God re- 
specting the particular way of fulfilling the general 
law of love, the probable consequences are the 
grand means of determining what is right. A ra- 
tional and prospective being not responsible for 
the consequences of his conduct ! An outrage 
upon the Bible ! The entire moral weight of that 
Book presses upon the principle that, so far as he 
is informed or can foresee, every moral being is 
responsible for the consequences of his conduct. 
In urging his law upon us, God points us to the 
consequences of obedience and of disobedience, 



103 

and tells us that for these he will hold us forever 
responsible. If the transgressor goes on in sin, 
and the consequence is endless mischief, he is re- 
sponsible for it, and retributive justice will fix it 
eternally on his own head. So also in summoning 
us to a wise and faithful attention to the interests 
of the present life, God everywhere points us to 
consequences, calling us to act in view of them ; 
presenting them as objective motives, and hold- 
ing us responsible for them. If we, therefore, in 
defiance of probable consequences, countenance 
measures tending to the dissolution of our national 
union, and the consequences overtake us and our 
children in the ruin of State and Church, ours is 
the sir., and on us will avenging justice fall. 

There is a right and a wrong, in attempting to do 
good, as well as in everything else. Said one of 
the most pious and eminent of our citizens to cer- 
tain individuals, who were pushing the scheme of 
abolition in what he conceived to be an unwise 
and unchristian way, ' If your design is to alien- 
ate our southern brethren from us ; to place them 
beyond the reach of our influence ; to steel their 
hearts against any convictions we may wish to 
induce ; to blight, blast, and condemn them : to 
rivet faster the chains of slavery, and to sunder 
our union, — you are taking exactly the right 
course. Hut if you wish to secure their confi- 
dence ; to win their hearts j to produce salutary 






104 

conviction of the wrongfulness of slavery ; to in- 
duce them to effect as speedy an emancipation as 
in wise benevolence they can, and to perpetuate 
our fellowship and union, — you are taking exactly 
the wrong course — you are going against all the 
known laws of human nature, your course is the 
most impolitic conceivable. Never did such means 
as you use, conduct to such results as you seek.' 

Far, very far, am I from advocating slavery. 
Of the everlasting wrongfulness of the system, I 
have never for a moment doubted. Nor wish I to 
apologize for its advocates. Moreover, the conduct 
of some at the south in rebuking the movements 
of abolitionists, in unlawful ways, is worthy of 
unmitigated reprehension. Were I at the south, 
I would preach against such conduct as point- 
edly as I would against the conduct of their an- 
tipodes at the north. But we owe it to our 
brethren at the south, and our southern brethren 
owe it to us, to consider, that those in either sec- 
tion who advocate these rash and unconstitutional 
measures, are not all or half the community. 
They are a great minority. Then let not the 
good feelings, faith, and fellowship of the majori- 
ty be disturbed. Let not our southern friends 
suppose, that all the hard names so bountifully lav- 
ished upon them here, are the voice of ' The North ;' 
nor let us suppose, that the tones of angry menace, 
that come wafting to us ever and anon on the 



105 

southern breezes, are the echo of ' The South.' 
Still, that there is considerable agitation and anger 
towards us, among the people of the south, we have 
too much reason to apprehend. To this, however, 
they have been provoked by us. I will not say that 
the effect is not greater than the cause justifies. 
But never were the bonds of slavery so tight, laws 
respecting it so rigorous, slave-holders so impreg- 
nable to our influence, and the prospect of a nation- 
al rupture so alarming, as at this moment. It has 
come of indiscreet movements on the subject of 
slavery at the north, urged forward in a way, as 
I conceive, adverse to the spirit of the gospel, 
and also to the spirit of our national constitution. 
Unless we adopt a more Christian way, and ' do 
the things that make for peace,' the breach will 
increase, till we must bid farewell to our union. 

Respecting what that more Christian way is, I 
have expressed my views to you on a former oc- 
casion, in discoursing on the way to promote lib- 
erty and union. The importance, and hence the 
duty of fostering our union is so obvious, that it 
were superfluous to produce at large the scriptural 
testimony respecting it. All those injunctions 
upon the Jewish nation to guard against civil dis- 
sensions, and to prevent men who would excite 
them ; all those Scriptures which teach us to lead 
quiet and peaceable lives, to dwell together as 
brethren, to have no strife, to preserve the unity 



106 

of the spirit ; to promote peace, love, union, both 
in religious and civil matters — are fully to this 
point. I have instanced the fretting subject of 
slavery ; but that is far from being the only one, on 
which we are in danger of dashing. The same 
manner in which we ought to meet this, is 
equally due to all other subjects endangering our 
union. 

We ought to pray much for our rulers If 
we would cease ' to speak evil of dignities,' 
desist from reviling our rulers, and set our hearts 
benevolently* to praying for them, our conduct 
would be more according to the Bible, and would 
promise to make our rulers better, if better they 
need to be. Do you doubt it ? Listen then to 
what inspiration says, — 1 1 exhort,' says Paul, 
' that first of all supplications and prayers, inter- 
cessions and giving of thanks be made for all men ; 
for kings, and for all that are in authority, that 
we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godli- 
ness and honesty ; for this is good and acceptable 
in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all 
men to be saved and come to the knowledge of 
the truth.' Even the haughty and persecuting 
heathen rulers, God would not suffer Christians to 
revile and abandon to perdition ; rather would he 
have them pray for them, as objects of their love 
and hope ; seeing he would have all men convert- 
ed and saved. This too was the way to promote 



107 

mutual good will, to conciliate suspicions and jeal- 
ousies, to produce in both rulers and subjects, a dis- 
position to, 'lead quiet and peaceable lives.' 'I 
will, therefore, that men pray everywhere, lifting 
up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.' — 
That is, instead of cherishing ill will towards the 
rulers, pray for them in the spirit of love ; instead 
of despairing of their conversion, pray with confi- 
dence in the divine promise. The amount of the 
instruction is, ' Put away all reviling, all evil speak- 
ing of your rulers, and set yourselves with the Chris- 
tian spirit to praying for them.' And what does 
our observation teach us ? Does ever a man pray 
aright for those he slanders ? And does ever a 
man slander those, for whom he aright prays ? 
Let those ' supplications, prayers, intercessions, 
and giving of thanks,' which the Bible enjoins, 
go up to God through the length and breadth of 
our land, 'for all that are in authority,' and how 
soon should we love and respect our rulers, and 
they love and respect us, and the blessing of Heaven 
descend on all. 

We ought also to pray incessantly and fervently for 
our nation. All but infidels believe that prayer has 
efficacy with God, and we are assured that prayer for 
their people and nation is often enjoined on men in 
the Bible. Witness too, the examples of Abraham, of 
Lot, of Moses, of David, of Daniel, of Nehemiah, 
of Jeremiah, and of other good men. Seasons of 



108 

special fasting and prayer for their country in 
peril or affliction, were also commanded and prac- 
ticed. ' Turn ye to me,' saith the Lord, ' with all 
your heart, and with fasting and with weeping, 
and with mourning, and rend your heart and 
not your, garment, and turn to the Lord your 
God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to 
anger and of great kindness, and repenteth of 
the evil. Who knoweth if he will return and re- 
pent and leave a blessing behind him.' 'Blow 
the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a sol- 
emn assembly; — let the priests, the ministers of 
the Lord weep between the porch and the altar, 
and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, 
and give not thy heritage to reproach, that the 
heathen should reign over them.' Why should 
they say among the people, ' Where is their 
God ? ' ' Then will the Lord be jealous for his 
land and pity his people.' And surely, brethren, 
if ever a nation was in a condition calling for 
similar fasting and prayer, ours is at the present 
time. Especially let us all realize the importance 
of making it a part of our daily religion, to 
pray more for our rulers, our institutions, our na- 
tion. 

I have endeavored to present a religious view 
of our duties to our nation, comprising them in 
the following particulars, — of all rulers, to rule 
in the fear of God, having supreme regard to his 



109 

glory in the highest good of the people ; of all 
citizens, to elect competent and righteous men to 
office ; to practice and encourage subjection to the 
civil authorities ; to promote a sentiment of respect 
towards men in authority ; to foster our national 
union ; to pray for our rulers and our nation. 

Time fails me to speak at large of our motives 
to these duties ; I shall only glance at them, leav- 
ing them to expand and take effect in your own 
minds. 

And first, we are on the verge of national ruin. 
Let things go on with increasing ratio for a very 
few years longer, as they have for five years past, 
and we shall be gone beyond redemption. Can 
any intelligent student of history doubt it ? No- 
thing will save us, short of something resulting in 
a better understanding, and more faithful practice 
of our duties to civil government — a new and 
better spirit, encouraged by all good men, reacting 
upon that at present so rife, and producing a right 
tone of sentiment and action towards what the 
Scriptures denominate l the powers that be.' 

But what if our nation does perish, say some ; 
Is that a calamity of so great magnitude ? I ob- 
serve then again, that in all human probability, 
the temporal and eternal destinies of many millions 
in this country, including our own children, 
hang upon the fate of our nation. If their ruin 
is the probable consequence of our misdoing, then 
10 



110 

will their blood be upon us. We shall participate 
in the guilty cause of it, and God will 'visit the in- 
iquities of the fathers upon their children,' it may 
be, even l to the third and fourth generations,' 
before the fathers' curse is removed, and a nation's 
blessing shall again spread its wing over a redeemed 
land. 

But further, the fate of other nations, now civ- 
illy and morally enslaved, will probably turn on 
the fate of ours. Despotic governments are wait- 
ing the result of our experiment, are sure to feel 
the power of our example and yield to it, if we 
fail not. There is in man a principle which 
makes it certain, that if nations can be perma- 
nently free and safe, they will be. The experi- 
ment is now being made by us on a scale more 
grand, decisive, and sure to effect the whole world, 
than ever was before. If Ave fail, the hope of des- 
pots will revive, of the people die ; and a night 
darker than Egypt will come over the nations. 
Yea, the fate of Africa herself, with her millions 
of sons and daughters of sable skin, and sabler 
mind, held in slavery under her own sky, awaits 
the influence to emanate from us, to emancipate 
her children, or prolong their bondage. Let our 
nation live and prosper, and not long hence will 
her light penetrate the darkest lands ; yea, even 
Etheopia herself will stretch forth her hands to 
God. Already has our example awakened the 



Ill 

spirit of liberty in the subjects of arbitrary and 
hereditary crowns ; but their monarchs say * Wait 
the experiment. America is yet a child. Time 
will prove what we declare, that republican gov- 
ernments can never stand.' And oh, if we do not 
disappoint them, if we do fail, how will they 
' scream out their joy ! ' 

The time of the Redeemer's enthronement and 
triumph over the world, will, in all probability, be 
greatly accelerated or retarded by the success or 
the failure of our nation. We limit not the Holy 
One, but we are assured that he works by means. 
Nor is it in the midst of revolution, anarchy, and 
blood, that his spiritual kingdom comes. It is 
when peace and quiet are pervading the earth, as 
at his advent. Moreover, the same disaster that 
should crush our nation, would along with it dash 
the whole system of moral machinery in our 
land for disseminating over the earth the Christian 
salvation. Can we, as Christians, be indifferent to 
interests so vast and sacred ! 

Finally, the authority of God as presented in 
the Bible, presses its mighty motives upon us. If I 
have not studied that sacred Book in vain, if I 
have not utterly mistaken its meaning, it does posi- 
tively and most explicitly enjoin upon us, as an 
essential part of religion, those duties to civil gov- 
ernment which I have to-day set forth. I appeal 
then to my fellow citizens, not only as men, as 



112 

philanthropists, and as lovers of their country, 
pledged to her interests, but, to all susceptible to 
the higher and more sacred motives of religion, as 
men fearing God. If you would be true to God, 
be true to your nation. If you would advance 
his glory, promote the interests of that govern- 
ment under which his providence has placed you. 
By all the respect which he has for the Bible, is 
every man in the land summoned to a faithful dis- 
charge of these duties to his nation. Only let us 
be a people religiously faithful to the duties en- 
joined in the Bible, walking in the steps of Moses 
and of David, of Christ and of his apostles, and 
while suns roll and rivers run shall our nation 
stand, towering in greatness, and strength, and 
glory. The mount of the Lord's house will be 
established on the top of these mountains, and 
will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will 
flow unto it. 



SERMON V. 

DUTY TO CHRISTIANIZE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

Rev. 11 : 15. The kingdoms of this world are become the 
kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign 
forever and ever. 

The prophet John was favored with a vision of 
the triumphant reign of Christ over the kingdoms 
of this world. It is our duty, by all Christian 
means, to hasten on that reign. It is to be done, 
first and principally, by elevating the holiness and 
thus increasing the moral power of the Christian 
church, in connection with the divinely constituted 
instrumentalities for evangelizing and regenerating 
mankind. But I am now to speak more especially 
of another and a subordinate duty j nevertheless a 
real one. 

We ought to direct the influences of the 
gospel to the object of thoroughly chris- 
tianizing our civil government. 

Christians have often failed to give sufficient at- 
tention to this duty ; — some from wrong theoret- 
ical views respecting the extent of the relations of 
*10 



114 

Christianity to the temporal interests of society ; 
others, from a fear of entering upon the stormy el- 
ement of political strife ; others, from supposing it 
beneath the dignity of the Christian spirit to med- 
dle with political affairs ; others, from an excess 
of that delicacy of feeling which shrinks from 
contact with the rough world ; others, from a 
prejudice against everything like an alliance of 
Church and State. But unless I mistake the genius 
of Christianity, and what it is destined to accom- 
plish, it has bearings on all the institutions of the 
world, yet to be fully developed ; and it should be 
our Christian ambition, in the application of its 
power, to bequeath to coming generations a richer 
legacy than we received, not only in a holier and 
larger church, but also in an improved condition of 
arts, sciences, schools, laws, governments, and 
whatever adorns and blesses mankind. 

From that unrighteous kind of union of Church 
and State, which has obtained in many of the in- 
stitutions of the old world, may our nation be for- 
ever saved ; but there is another sort of union, 
whose consummation is devoutly to be wished. 
Are politics and Christianity to be considered im- 
mortal enemies to each other ? Assuredly a recon- 
ciliation is destined to take place between them. 
If Christianity be destined to extend her reign 
over the kingdoms of the world, she is to embrace 






115 

all the civil and political institutions of mankind, 
and unite theiri to herself in everlasting bonds. 

The alarm which we justly feel at the mention 
of a union of Church and State, or of religion and 
politics, results rather from what has been and is, 
than from what ought to be and will be. It has 
not been a union of genuine religion with genuine 
politics, but of an adulteration of the two ; what 
then could the amalgum be, but an abhorrence of 
all good men ? The idea of some mysterious and 
arbitrary sovereignty, clothed with irresponsible 
power, that kingdoms and popedoms are divinely 
authorized to do wickedly, or rather that whatev- 
er they do is of course right, nor is to be questioned 
without sacrilege — such an idea has lain like a 
death-pall on the minds of the enthralled people, 
and along with other causes, prevented their long 
since leaping into the life, liberty, enterprise and 
virtue, for which they were created. Hence, in- 
stead of that order of things, by which minds, in- 
telligent, free, active, under sanction of God. 
govern themselves by their own institutions, the 
few have controlled the many, by a power almost 
as physical as that by which inert matter is mould- 
ed and moved in space. 

Men of wicked ambition, have thus made of 
Christianity corrupted, a tremendous engine of op- 
pression. They have brought to their aid not 
only all the powers of this world, but the powers 



116 

of the world to come — not only the pains of the 
tortured body, but the pangs of the deathless spirit 
have been made to come down on the excited fears 
of men, to- awe them into deeds of submission 
and profitable penance. All the native sensibili- 
ties to religion in minds made for religion and im- 
mortality, all the inbred reverence for superior be- 
ings, all the inherent forces of conscience, all the 
profound and solemn movements of the spirit in 
view of the amazing interests of the eternal world, 
have gone over together into the hands of ecclesias- 
tical and political ambition, and forged a chain of 
despotic power so mighty, that scarcely have the 
giant forces of the Reformers, and all who have 
since conspired in the same struggle, been able to 
break it from the world. 

Looking upon all this as the legitimate progeny 
of a union of Church and State, no wonder that 
the friends of humanity should cry out loudly 
and eternally against everything like such an un- 
ion. Beholding then the little band of spiritual 
Christians happily united under their own peace- 
ful banners, enjoying their common interest and 
seeking no kingdom but one l not of this world ; ' 
beholding then again, in contrast, the company of 
restless politicians, the fire of a quenchless ambi- 
tion burning on their brows, and intrigue and envy, 
and lust of power gathering in their train, no 
wonder that they have concluded, that on the 



117 

ono hand is the kingdom of Christ, and on the 
other, the kingdom of the devil, and that all at- 
tempts to unite them were worse than idle. 

.Startling indocd it is, to see a popedom sur- 
mounting all law, human and divine, setting itself 
up in place of God ; usurping dominion, absolute 
over men, not only for this world, but for the 
world to come ; and to us, especially, the free-born 
puritanic sons of those who braved the perils of 
the ocean and the wilderness for Christian liberty, 
it is far from agreeable to see anything like an ec- 
clesiastical establishment putting power and wealth 
in the hands of an ambitious and luxurious prelacy, 
and enticing unholy motives to assume the gown 
and surplice ; — and scarcely less abhorrent, is the 
sight of professing Christians in Protestant lands, 
' stretching beyond their measure,' and panting after 
the honors of political power. But what then ? 
Are we to say, that Christianity shall have noth- 
ing to do with civil government ? Or that pure 
Christianity is dangerous to sound politics and true 
liberty ? I think not. To infer hence, that Chris- 
tianity should be allowed no influence over civil 
government, and continually to reiterate in proof 
the stale lesson of European abuses, is declama- 
tion thrown into the air. It amounts only to this, 
that the union of selfish ambition under color of 
patriotism, and of selfish ambition under color of 
religion — the power of the adversary doubly arm- 



118 

ed and enthroned — is dangerous to human liber- 
ty ; which none will doubt. 

But to come to the question. — Is Christianity to 
have dominion over human governments ? The 
subject is reducible to two propositions ; one of 
which is true. 

First, human governments are to be annihilated, 
and Christ is to interpose in their stead a kingdom 
altogether transcendent, superseding human agen- 
cies j in which he will exercise an immediate and 
personal reign, as some primitive Christians suppos- 
ed ; — or 

Secondly, human governments are to be Chris- 
tianized ; so that the light, spirit, laws and prin- 
ciples of Christianity will pervade, animate, per- 
fect and bless them. 

To the first proposition are the following objec- 
tions. In the first place, it accords not with the 
declaration of our text, which is, not that the king- 
doms of this world are annihilated, but that " they 
are become the kingdoms of our Lord." In the 
second place, it is opposed to the constitution and 
course of nature ; according to which all institu- 
tions and interests pertaining to this life are sus- 
tained and moved onward by human agencies. 
In the third place, it militates against the avowed 
design of Christianity, which is not to abate the 
activity of men, or annihilate any of their sources 
of happiness, but to correct whatever is wrong in 



119 

their conduct, and thus enhance the happiness of 
the world by bringing all of its institutions under 
the ascendant influence of righteousness. 

The last proposition has the following support. 
In the first place, the express declaration of our 
text, corroborated by many other Scriptures of a 
similar import. In the second place, it is in analo- 
gy with the constitution and course of nature. In 
the third place, it harmonizes with all the known 
conduct of Jehovah in respect to his accountable 
creatures, which is that of a wise parent who does 
not take away the responsibility and motives to 
action from his children, and thus reduce them to 
the condition of passive machines, suspended and 
moved on his will, but teaches them to govern and 
take care of themselves, and throws upon them 
the responsibility of so doing ; not indeed in a 
manner irrespective of his pleasure, but by con- 
vincing them that his pleasure is identified with 
their interest, and teaching them to incorporate it 
into all their doings. Finally, it accords with 
what we conceive to be the true genius of Chris- 
tianity and republicanism. Perfect republicanism 
is that state of things, in which the energies of 
righteous government bear equally on every indi- 
vidual, and each passes for precisely what he is. 
Instead of withdrawing, it imparts motives of right 
action ; all have them, and the influence of each 
individual is felt on the whole and on the govern- 



120 

ment, according to his character and relations. 
Such is the government of God over his empire of 
free minds ; and it presents the interesting, and at 
first view, apparently paradoxical spectacle of a 
monarch most perfectly sovereign presiding over a 
kingdom most perfectly republican. God himself 
is the Supreme Ruler ; all human rulers are the 
responsible ' ministers of God ;' all subjects his re- 
sponsible freemen, and all pervaded with one and 
the same spirit. 

That such is to be the nature of Christ's reign 
over the kingdoms of this world, a reign to be 
desired and sought by us, I would offer the follow- 
ing proof. 

A benevolent being must endeavor to render the 
universe as good and happy as possible. No other 
objective motive can compete with this, in a truly 
good mind. Benevolence identifies its own happi- 
ness with that of others, and its own blessedness 
is found in promoting the highest good of the uni- 
verse. This is the perfection of moral excellence. 
We know it is, if we know or can know what 
goodness is. Accordingly, if God is a good being, 
it is an object of his desire to render the universe 
as good and blessed as it can be made. 

To this end, it is evident, that the world must 
be governed. This is necessary, principally, to se- 
cure right moral character ; but suppose this were 
already secured, as it is in heaven, and all men were 



121 

holy as angels, still, if there were no head, no 
throne, no order, no common centre of light and 
attraction, but all minds were thrown entirely off 
from allegiance to a superior wisdom, the world 
would become such a scene of confusion, as to 
chafe and destroy all human happiness. 

Who shall preside ? On whom shall devolve 
the infinitely responsible and honorable office, of 
supreme guardianship of these great interests ? 
Suppose the election were now to be made, and the 
question to be put round through all ranks of in- 
telligences and receive a right response, what 
would that response be ? ' The being most compe- 
tent. Tell us who the being is that possesses 
most of the qualties, in their highest perfection, for 
that office, and he is the being we would have to 
sit upon the throne ! ' Now this, in secular language, 
is perfect republicanism ; in religious language, 
perfect moral government. Every mind loyal to 
goodness is allowed to choose and to realize the 
object of his choice, respecting his eternal King, as 
truly as though the election depended on his soli- 
tary vote. Moral worth is on the throne, and there 
by the wish of all good subjects. 

But who is that being best qualified to govern ? 

None other than God, supremely great and good. 

For, in addition to his natural attributes — his 

omnipotence, over all the elements of nature and 

li 



122 

over all circumstances and events ; his wisdom, to 
devise the best of means and infallibly guide them 
to the most excellent results j his immutability, to 
impart stability to his administration — he pos- 
sesses also a moral character of infinite benevo- 
lence, f God is love.' Now it is because God is 
more competent to govern the universe than any 
other being, that he does govern it. Were there 
any other being more competent, to that being he 
would undoubtedly resign the throne ; it would be 
no less his pleasure than his duty to do it. Here 
then we have the two things brought together, 
divine sovereignty and human agency, both com- 
plete. For can you form higher conception of 
sovereignty, than that in which a monarch is 
seated upon his throne with almighty power, 'doing 
all his pleasure in the armies of heaven and amidst 
the inhabitants of this lower world ; ' or of a free- 
dom of election more perfect, than that in which 
every mind chooses or refuses his king ? 

Suppose now that all the people of this nation 
were actuated by the spirit of the gospel, and there 
were one among us possessing the qualities to rule 
well in a degree possessed by no other ; such as to 
render it certain, that his supreme reign would ad- 
vance the interests of the nation in the highest pos- 
sible degree. — For the same reason that he would 
wish to rule, would all wish to have him rule. 
There would be no clashing of wills, no separate 



123 

interests ; his pleasure would be theirs, and their 
pleasure would be his. 

Such is the government of God ; such is to be 
his reign over the world, when all shall become 
subject to Christ. Can sovereignty be more per- 
fect ? A dominion not merely external, but over 
all the affections and wills of men ; so that his 
pleasure will only need to be known, to be free- 
ly and joyfully obeyed. Mankind will then- be 
both perfectly free, and perfectly governed. 

Our conclusion then is, that the kind of union 
of Church and State which is produced by renew- 
ing the minds of men, and sending thence up a 
moral influence through our civil and political in- 
stitutions, uniting them all to Christ, and render- 
ing all men affectionately allegiant to Him, as king 
supreme, and to subordinate rulers as his minis- 
ters, is a union to be desired, and one destined to 
bless all nations. Declamation against admitting 
the influences and claims of Christianity upon hu- 
man governments, under pretence of its hostility 
to liberty, is too late in the day. Those who are 
guilty of it, ought to blush for their ignorance. I 
appeal to facts. Robert Hall remarks, that < Hume 
and Bolingbroke, the great champions of infidel- 
ity, leaned towards arbitrary power ; while Owen, 
Baxter, Milton, and Howe, some of the most de- 
vout and venerable characters that ever lived, were 
warmly attached to liberty.' The same remark is of 



124 

general application. The most devoted friends of 
pure Christianity, have usually been the most de- 
cided advocates of civil liberty. ' If Christ make 
you free ye shall be free indeed.' 

Christianity will then so far change or modify 
human governments, as that all minds will become 
unfettered and all governments essentially free ; 
not that all will of course be reduced to the same 
modes and forms, or that all local and national 
peculiarities will be merged, but that such will 
become the order of things, that in every nation 
the man most competent to rule, will rule, the man 
most competent to fill all subordinate offices, ' will 
fill them, and thus the benevolent wish of every 
subject and ruler be herein alike gratified ; — while 
every subject shall be also disposed to render cheer- 
ful obedience to the powers thus ordained of God 
and chosen by himself, as at once the pleasure of 
God and his own pleasure, cordially rendering to 
all their due, * tribute to whom tribute is due, cus- 
tom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to 
whom honor.' Thus will the moral power of the 
intellect and heart of God, manifested in Christ, 
govern the nations. 

There is hence to be an indissoluble union of 
Church and State ; Christianity and politics are to 
join hands, identify interests, run the same race and 
reach the same goal. 

If the foregoing doctrine be correct, it follows 



125 

that as the light and influence of Christianity shall 
increasingly pervade the minds of men, instead of 
withdrawing from the affairs of government and 
giving them over into the hands of unprincipled 
men, Christians will consider it their duty to take 
possession of thorn and consecrate them to Christ. 
This duty involves some particulars, which we will 
now briefly notice. 

As far as their circumstances allow, Christians 
must render themselves intelligent in respect to 
this subject. None but men professionally devoted, 
are to be expected to explore the intricacies of le- 
gal and political science ; but within the reach of 
all men of common sense, is a sufficient knowledge 
of general principles and their particular applica- 
tion, to qualify them for the duties of civil govern- 
ment : — such as the nature and end of right gov- 
ernment ; the ground of its necessity and claims ; 
the conventional laws of nations : the constitution 
of our federal republic : more especially the insti- 
tutions and laws of our own section. We are not 
to forget that all the offices of government are yet 
to be filled by Christians ; not only are Christians 
to elect rulers, but they are themselves to rule. 
They ought then to qualify themselves for these re- 
sponsibilities. 

We should be unwilling to see Christians in the 
race of political ambition, thrusting themselves un- 
called into places of civil power, panting after 
*11 



126 

worldly honor ; nor do we expect it. The spirit 
of Christianity is equally distant from pusillanim- 
ity and obtrusiveness. It is both benevolence and 
humility ; that benevolence which seeks the good 
of society, and that humility which is prone to 
make men adjudge places of honor to others rather 
than themselves. While therefore the consistent 
Christian will not shrink from any duty imposed 
upon him by the providence of God, in the ex- 
pressed wish of his fellow citizens, for the good of 
his country, he will still be far from the character 
of an office seeker. Indeed it is proverbially true, 
that those most forward to get possession of offices, 
are usually the least worthy — the least qualified 
to rule, and the least sensible of the responsibili- 
ties of a public trust. So that in the end, the sur- 
est way to lose fame, is to pursue it ; as even a hea- 
then poet has taught us. When the kingdoms of 
this world shall become the kingdoms of Christ, 
though all the high places of power and honor will 
be filled with Christians, we expect to see the 
beautiful ornament of a meek and quiet spirit so 
reigning in their hearts, as to fulfill the apostolic 
instruction ; ' Nothing will be done through strife 
or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind will each 
esteem others better than themselves.' 

The duty incumbent on all citizens to elect 
good men to office, is especially incumbent on 
Christians. It is not merely a civil, it is a Chris- 



127 

tian duty. But here ought we zealously to guard 
against making the name of Christ, or of any sect 
or partyi subservient to the ends of political ambi- 
tion ; — This is that unhallowed alliance of Church 
and State, which we all justly agree to condemn. 
Our question respecting a candidate for office should 
be, not whether he is a professo? merely of 
Christianity ; or to which sect he belongs ; or to 
which association or party, for some avowedly 
Christian object — whether for instance he is, on 
the subject of abolition, an immediatist or a grad- 
ualist ; or whether he is a mason, or an anti-ma- 
son, or neither — but whether he has most of the 
Christian spirit, and of the other qualifications to 
rule well. While we strenuously advocate the 
duty of elevating the best men to office, we rue 
the day when Christianity, in any of its forms, 
shall become subservient to selfish ambition and 
party politics. To avoid this, as far as possible, let 
it be regarded as a general rule, that the promi- 
nent and leading men of these voluntary associa- 
tions, should not be elected to civil offices. 

The reasons for this rule are, first, if such 
men are doing good, they can accomplish 
more in their appropriate sphere, which is to 
put forth not a civil, but a purely moral influence 
upon society ; secondly, it will help to save them 
from being possessed or charged with motives of 
political ambition ; thirdly, it will tend to preserve 



128 

the balance of power. Were there time, I could 
present to you abundant historical proof, that it 
would be dangerous to our free institutions to ele- 
vate men to stations of civil trust, who are leading 
large voluntary associations of any kind. For the 
same reason that I would not, as a general rule, elect 
a clergyman to a civil office, who is at the head 
of a powerful sect, I would not, at least in the 
present state of things, elect a leading pro-mason 
or anti-mason, pro-slaver or anti-slaver, or a leader 
of any other great voluntary association. Do you 
say, this is discouraging clergymen and other refor- 
mers from leading forth benevolent enterprises ? 
How so ? Political ambition is not their motive. 
If true to their profession, they have another and 
a higher aim. 

A truly Christianized government is liberal, 
aloof from party, impartial, and while it throws 
its broad shield over all benevolent associations, 
when through human frailty such associations see 
not eye to eye, it will not exalt one against ano- 
ther ; nor will it ever tolerate encroachment upon 
its own peculiar province. Churches and other 
voluntary associations have their place, civil gov- 
ernments have also their place ; distinct in their 
operations, but, if truly Christian, united in spirit 
and conspiring to the same ultimate end — the 
good of mankind. Still let them move on in their 
appropriate spheres. Let an instrument never be 



129 

made of the one, to bring a party spirit into the 
other ; it is alike destructive of the true interests 
of both. The setting up as candidate for civil 
office of an anti-mason, or of an abolitionist, for 
instance, or of any other such like partisan, because 
he is such, and the practice of catechising candi- 
dates for office with view to a party interest of 
this kind is hostile to the spirit of our civil gov- 
ernment, and ought to be universally condemn- 
ed. 

The means most of all indispensable in Chris- 
tianizing our government, remains to be mentioned, 
the rectifying of public opinion. Already is our 
government, in the main, theoretically Chris- 
tian. We trace in it something of the an- 
cient English Institutes, something of the Ro- 
man, something of the Institutes of the Gre- 
cian Republics, and many of those of the He- 
brew Commonwealth ; all however headed and 
modified, more or less, by Christianity. Our civil 
polity is somewhat like Nebuchadnezzar's image, 
of which it is said, ' his head was of fine gold, 
his breast and arms of silver, his belly and thighs 
of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and 
part of clay.' Now we undoubtedly ought to 
make our government throughout thoroughly 
Christian ; so that all of its instruments and move- 
ments sball be controlled by the laws, precepts, 
motives and sanctions of the Bible. But in order 



130 

to this, public opinion must be set right ; there 
must be formed in the community a more Chris- 
tian conscience respecting it. We must diffuse 
through the public mind more of sound Christian 
morality, and we must bring it to bear more upon 
this subject. The notion that religion and poli- 
tics must have nothing to do with each other, has 
too often induced Christians, whenever they ap- 
proached politics, to leave their religion behind. 
Of our legislators and judges, how few bring their 
religion with them to the hall and the bench. 
They even make a duty of leaving it at home, 
or in the sanctuary, because they are profes- 
sionally to serve their office, and not Christ ! 
And of all subjects, how few bring religion prac- 
tically to bear upon their relations and duties to 
our government. They seem to have, as is said 
of some merchants, tivo consciences ; one for relig- 
ion, and one for other purposes. Now if even Chris- 
tians do thus, what will others do ? If we would 
make our nation what it should be, public opinion 
on this subject must be regenerated ; for it is pub- 
lic opinion, that is to elevate our civil institutions 
to the throne of God, or to sink them and us into 
heathenism. 

Nothing is more apparent, if we consider that 
republican governments are under God creations 
of the people ; that all their officers, their legisla- 
tors, judges, executors ; that both the enaction 



131 

and execution of their laws, their character and 
their end, depend wholly upon the will of the 
people : that when the elective franchise is univer- 
sal, the popular will is entirely sovereign. When 
all authority thus returns periodically into the 
hands of the people, we cannot enact good laws 
without a righteous popular sentiment ; and if en- 
acted, they cannot be executed. What then are 
laws and sanctions, what the men who frame and 
execute them, but instruments of the public will ? 
An able writer, in remarking upon the omnipotence 
of public opinion, observes, ' This is public opinion, 
and right it should be so. It is essential to the 
very existence of that form of government which 
under God has so long blessed us. Still it is a 
fact, and a fact which may serve to show us where 
our strength lies, and whence, if at all, weakness 
and ruin will overtake us. Let public opinion 
with all this omnipotence of control become deep- 
ly corrupt, and still government, its laws, their 
framers, their executors, are all subservient to its 
dictations. What do laws against murder avail, 
under the frown of public opinion ? Let the 
laws against duelling, in many parts of our coun- 
try, answer. What are laws against bodily tor- 
ture, when the practice of it is countenanced by 
public opinion ? Barbarities, which are enough 
to make one's blood curdle, inflicted in many in- 
stances on the unhappy victims of slavery, furnish 



132 

the answer. What are laws against drunkenness, 
when the popular voice forbids their execution ? 
The woes and the groans of the land bring the re- 
ply to our ears. Now, let public opinion advance 
in degeneracy, till it shall decree into its public en- 
actments the maxims of infidelity and atheism ; 
let the living God be voted out of existence, and 
death, the door of eternal retributions, be trans- 
formed into the unbroken sleep of the grave; let 
evil be called good and good evil, darkness be 
put for light and light for darkness, and what 
would be your legislators, your judges, your wit- 
nesses, your executive officers ? The mere pan- 
ders and patrons of crime. What would be your 
subjects ? The mere perpetrators of crime. And 
how long before a tide of woes would overwhelm 
all that is fair and happy in this land ? How long 
before an impatience under miseries, which hu- 
manity could not endure, would madden and con- 
vulse the nation, till every foundation of order, 
peace and happiness, would be subverted, as by 
the shock of an earthquake.'* 

And even could we succeed, in such a state of 
things, to elevate good men to office, and to en- 
act and execute righteous laws, to what would all 
amount in controlling the warring and mighty ele- 
ments of unsanctified passions, thus let loose ? It 

* Dr. Taylor's Discourse before the Legislature of Conn. 
1823, p. 8. 



133 

were as fruitless as the attempt of Xerxes to bind 
the raging billoAvs of the Hellespont with a chain. 
Laws of iron even, executed with a more than Ly- 
curgran rigor, were like the green withs upon the 
hands of Sampson. There is an awful energy in 
human passions ! — When once fully awakened 
and let loose, like the war-horse frenzied with fear 
and madness, they are absolutely uncontrollable. 
Penalties have almost no power to restrain them. 
Like the spirit of a storm, they will no more brook 
constraint, than the impatient tempest gathered in 
the pregnant cloud — they will burst forth, rage 
on, and desolate all before them, despite of the ter- 
rors of God and man ! ' Bodily sufferings, ' says 
the same writer above cited, c are of light estima- 
tion, compared with the restlessness or anguish of 
ungratified desire. The death-song of the savage, 
which he sings when expiring under the hands of 
his tormentors, shows how the spirit within can 
sustain the pressure from without. But the spirit, 
tortured by its own fires, awakes to desperation. 
Obstruct the path of excited avarice or excited 
ambition, by toil, by suffering, or even by tor- 
ment, and the influence to check its career is as 
stubble before the spreading flame. Let then a 
corrupt public opinion detach from civil govern- 
ment its moral obligations, and leave it only the in- 
fluence of penal sanctions, and let the prospect of 
wealth or fame open bright to their appropriate pas- 
12 



134 

sions, and the deeds of the pirate and the hero 
tell us what men would do. How would terror 
and consternation seize every heart in a moment, 
did we know that there was nothing but the feeble 
arm of magistracy to protect us from the daggers 
of assassins ! ' 

It seems to be the order of nature, that the 
greatest of blessings is connected with the greatest 
of dangers. What gift so divine as that of a free 
mind ? What woe so dreadful as its abuse brings ? 
What public blessing richer than civil liberty ? 
What public curse more awful than its perversion 
to licentiousness ? Who ever stood on a more en- 
viable eminence than Lucifer, bright morning star 
in strength and glory ? What fall like his ! 

-Still the eminence to which we are exalted, is 
no less valuable, and the blessing of free institu- 
tions no less real, because connected with danger; 
for there are means at command to preserve them, 
and the effort demanded of us to do it, is essential 
to human enjoyment. Give to a mind made for 
action the richest treasure, and therewith a cer- 
tainty of its eternal inheritance without any vir- 
tuous effort on his part, and you make that mind 
wretched. It is not the passive, it is the active 
possession — the inheritance of an object as the 
reward of successful effort and triumph over obsta- 
cles, inspiring a consciousness of moral power and 
elevation, that the nature of mind craves. More- 



135 

over, it is only in this way, that those mental qual- 
ities arc engendered and matured, which are the 
eternal soil of happiness. 

The principle applies to communities. We 
should regard a pledge from heaven of the perpe- 
tuity of our free institutions, without, any virtuous 
sacrifices and efforts on our part, as the sorest ca- 
lamity. Not a generation would pass, before our 
benevolent enterprise would be palsied, our public 
spirit expire, selfishness and vice triumph, and an 
enervating sickly atmosphere come over all the 
land. We need not then waste a moment in re- 
pining over our national perils ; let us meet them 
in a Christian manner, and they will become our 
blessing. 

If the figure be not offensive, it may be said 
that our nation, as has been true of all na- 
tions that have lived and died, is diseased ; and 
its disease is manifested in a variety of particulars. 
Now, while »it is our duty, like the scientific phy- 
sician, to give our main attention to applying the 
essential remedy to the vital seat of all disease, it is 
also incumbent upon us to meet the particular form of 
disease with a Christian treatment. In some instan- 
ces, the most Christian treatment is what physicians 
call the expectant course. — Let the specific disease 
alone, and only address the generic remedy to the 
seat of all. Sometimes these particular forms of 
disease are only the natural ruptures, through 



136 

which the central disease is struggling its way- 
out. In other instances, much may be done in 
the way of a specific application. Let us very 
briefly notice some of the more prominent forms 
of our national disease, and the treatment at pres- 
ent indicated. 

Infidelity. Let infidel principles gain the as- 
cendant, and atheism stalk at large over the land, 
and all our free institutions, now in the bloom and 
freshness of youth, would soon wither and expire 
like the green forest when smitten by the poison- 
ous breath of the sirocco. The very soil would 
feel the curse, and refuse to yield again till renew- 
ed. Even if anarchy and blood should not in- 
stantly follow, yet it will forever remain as impos- 
sible for the soil of infidelity to nourish free insti- 
tutions, as for the burning sands of an Arabian 
desert to produce corn and fruit. The experience 
of mankind is abundant on this point ; infidelity 
cannot sustain free institutions. It never did and 
never can impart true liberty, without that licen- 
tiousness which works its overthrow. 

Treatment. Indicated by the disease. Let the 
light, evidences, and regenerating power of the 
Christian religion, be by all available means dis- 
seminated through the land. 

Intemperance. A vice which, even before the 
alarm was felt and proclaimed, had well nigh 
overwhelmed our nation as with a sea of fire, and 



137 

realized to us a destruction not less miserable 
than befell Sodom and Gomorrah. The people 
who had braved the perils of the ocean, subdued the 
wild forest, conquered the mightiest nation on the 
globe, and waved their stars exultingly in the 
eyes of the world, were sinking into the slavery 
of a lust more formidable than the chains of an 
eastern despot. Fifty years more had accomplished 
the prediction of an envious European prophet, 
who said, 'We cannot conquer the Americans, but 
they will conquer themselves. They have only to 
go on in their present course, and their boasted 
national glory will soon find the drunkard's graveV 
The danger still threatens. Leviathan is not kill- 
ed ; he is only wounded. 

Treatment. Let the friends of temperance 
spend their strength and divide their efforts no 
more, in idle. contention about the character of the 
wine which Christ made, or about the use of wine 
at the communion, &c. &c, which only serves to 
make the enemies merry, at the expense of the 
cause they hate. What have the few drops of 
wine taken at the communion, or even a glass 
taken on the extraordinary occasion of a wedding, 
if people choose to take it, or in any of the cir- 
cumstances in which its use appears to many to 
be sanctioned in the Bible, to do with the great 
principles of temperance ? Some ultraists will no 
doubt continue to say, < Much, every way ; the 
*i2 



138 

whole cause hinges here,' till, by the law of reaction, 
they are thrown to the opposite extreme. What 
comes of all this, but to repel entirely many from 
the cause, to divert others . from the main object, 
to alienate friends, to produce a denunciatory and 
slanderous spirit, and thus to defeat all and more 
than all the good done ? Let us away with it, 
and come unitedly to the great work. Let absti- 
nence from intoxicating liquors as a drink, be en- 
couraged, as the most safe, wise, Christian treat- 
ment of intemperance. This can harm none ; 
it will benefit thousands. In the mean time, let 
all the light go forth ; let facts speak ; let the in- 
sidious nature, the guilt and danger, the irretrieva- 
ble and awful ruin of intemperance persisted in, be 
sounded on every ear throughout the nation, till 
not an intemperate person can exist, but by stop- 
ping his ears and leaping wilfully from the very 
grasp of humanity. 

Gambling. All games of hazard, including lot- 
teries, so prevalent in many parts of our country, 
are repugnant alike to Christian morality and re- 
publican government. They disturb the natural 
course of things, break up the divinely constituted 
connection between industry and prosperity, nour- 
ish some of the worst of human passions and vices, 
subvert the foundations of all virtuous society and 
good government. 

Treatment. Let the vice be exposed, let pub- 



130 

lie sentiment be more enlightened and reformed 
respecting it ; let legislation lay upon it a heavy 
hand. 

Romanism. A formidable danger is setting in 
upon our nation by the rapid ingress of the friends 
of ecclesiastical domination, and the immense ex- 
penditures and efforts of the papal powers to gain 
the ascendancy. Of this much is known and said ; 
I need not enlarge. That there is some real piety 
in the papal church, none will probably doubt ; 
but that the system 'is a corruption of Christianity, 
and hostile to free institutions, no Protestant will 
question. Romanism and republicanism cannot 
flourish on the same soil ; if the one triumphs, the 
other must fall. 

Treatment. Let all Christian means be used to 
enlighten and convert Catholics to Protestant prin- 
ciples, and to spiritual piety ; and in exposing their 
errors, let nothing be needlessly done to alienate 
them from us. Whether the Catholic religion is 
to be regenerated by a convulsive and revolution- 
ary overthrow of the entire system, or by a grad- 
ual reform of its abuses, is yet problematical. 

Profanation of the Sabbath. Annihilate the 
moral power of the Sabbath with its religious ser- 
vices throughout our land, and our free institutions 
would scarcely survive ten years. It is one of 
the sheet anchors of our nation. With apprehen- 
sions of most serious alarm, therefore, must every 



140 

good mind contemplate the invasion which is made 
upon the excellent example of our ancestors, in 
respect to remembering the Sabbath-day to keep 
it holy. 

Remedy. Let all Christian means to restore and 
sanctify the day in the public opinion, be greatly 
increased. 

Ignorance. From the destitution of schools and 
of a preached gospel, multitudes in various parts of 
our country are growing up in that ignorance, by 
which they are qualified to become tools of dem- 
agogues, and to vote away the property, liberty 
and lives of their countrymen. 

Treatment. Let all who have knowledge im- 
part it bountifully ; let institutions of learning be 
planted throughout the land. 

Licentiousness. After all that is said and pub- 
lished of its extent, its odious and malignant char- 
acter, its ruinous consequences to every fair form 
of intellect, religion, and social bliss ; its provoca- 
tion of divine wrath upon a people, as in the case 
of Sodom and other examples on record, the half 
is not told. It has even heathenized once Chris- 
tian nations. 

Remedy. Let the seventh commandment have 
its relative place in moral and religious instructions, 
let the pulpit and the press speak with all possible 
discretion and power j — no subject demands more 
of both. 



141 

Wealth. It is a question with some, -whether 
anything can be dangerous, that is not sinful. 
Wealth is not necessarily sinful unless idolized, or 
retained when benevolence demands it ; but as af- 
fording means of sinful indulgence, it is certainly 
dangerous. How many have been destroyed by 
abounding wealth ! And did ever wealth accumu- 
late upon any other nation, more than upon ours ? 

Treatment. Open wide the flood-gates of Chris- 
tian benevolence. 

Masonry and Antimasonry. Not very much 
danger, however, is to be apprehended from this 
cause ; as the day of its rending churches and 
politics is past or passing. 

Treatment. Let it alone. 

Slavery and Anti-slavery. Of the dangers 
hence resulting, it is needless to speak. So great 
and so manifest they are, that all see and feel them. 
Convulsive throes and agonies as of death, are at 
the present moment from this source sent to the 
very heart of our constitution. 

Treatment. One of the greatest and most dif- 
ficult subjects before the public. It is perhaps 
questionable whether anything has been gained, 
or is likely to be, by an interference of people at 
the north with the domestic affairs of the south. 
Slavery is an evil which intelligent men at the 
south realize, even more than we do ; let entirely 
alone, it is not improbable that the southern States 
would dispose of the subject in a way honorab e 



142 

to themselves, and safe to our country. Indeed 
they were beginning to do so, before we began to 
interfere. But if we have any Christian thing to 
do with the matter, it must be in the way of con- 
spiring in benevolent sacrifices with our southern 
brethren who wish well to the colored race, in the 
best means for their elevation, Ohristianization and 
ultimate emancipation. Christians at the north, 
as a body, have entire confidence in the moral in- 
tegrity of their southern brethren on this subject. 
Of several pious slave-holders in different States 
whom we know, there is not one who does not de- 
plore the existence of slavery, who does not ear- 
nestly desire its end ; and some of them are actu- 
ally doing, in personal labors and sacrifices for the 
elevation and freedom of the slaves, far more than 
any man north of the Potomac has ever done. 
Why then should we become alienated from each 
other's confidence and fellowship, in a work so 
pre-eminently demanding unity of spirit ? For 
the sake of religion and of our nation, we will 
not* 

* With the unblushing advocates of perpetual slavery, we have 
no sympathy. There is often more of apparent than real difference 
of opinion in Christian minds, on the subject of slavery, and some- 
times more of apparent than real agreement, owing to the loose and 
diverse application of the term principles. As applied to the 
abstract wrongfulness of slavery, and our duty to use Christian means 
to abolish it, probably all enlightened Christians hold essentially the 
same. Their disagreement respects rather, what are the most Chris- 
tian means of effecting the desired object. 



H3 

Slander. This includes all scurrillous attacks 
upon public and private characters, so abundant 
among us, both orally and in some papers. It is 
nourishing the vilest passions in the unprincipled 
and ambitious, producing among the people a tone 
of contempt towards men in authority, and be- 
getting a most alarming spirit of misrule in the 
bosom of our republic. 

Treatment. Let those who are reviled, revile 
not again ; let the counter virtue come into higher 
honor, and let all who still persist in the vile prac- 
tice, be left unanswered to themselves, to sink un- 
heard into deserved oblivion. 

Excitements and Riots. Increasing among us 
with frightful pace. Thought, deliberation, and 
calm judgment, are displaced by a spirit of popular 
excitement, raging like a tempest on various sub- 
jects ; — while oft-recurring riots, scarcely frowned 
upon, are disclosing to the lawless multitude a power 
of theirs superior to all civil authorities, and teach- 
ing the very children in the streets to defy the 
arm of magistracy. 

Treatment. Sufficiently indicated by the dis- 
ease. Let all the friends of government come 
forth to the support of law. The editors of our 
newspapers have a very responsible work here. 
Let them beware how they give the least counte- 
nance to misrule. 

We might go on to enlarge the catalogue of the 



144 

specific forms of our national disease ; but where 
shall we stop? They are all referable to one 
source, the same that has ever destroyed nations 
and peopled earth with woe — irreltgion. It is 
the alienation of the heart from God ; in its dark- 
ness and folly contemning his authority, rejecting 
his law. Nothing can perpetuate and bless our 
nation but religion. Our constitution cannot save 
us ; our laws cannot save us ; our magistrates can- 
not save us ; our military arms cannot save us ; 
they are all too weak to cope with thirteen mill- 
ions of the sons of Adam, under a government as 
free, as voluntary, as feeble as ours. But religion 
can save us. Let man's immortality and ac- 
countability, let the law of God with its 
eternal sanctions, let the hope of pardon 
and of a better inheritance to the penitent 



Spirit attending and renewing the life and 
power of pure religion among our churches and 
people — and farewell to all fear for our nation. 
There will be the lighting down to us of Jehovah's 
power and presence ; He will be a ' wall of fire round 
about us, and a glory in our midst.' But in order 
to this, we must cease from our contentions, our 
excitements, our alienations, our absorbing interest 
in almost everything but religion ; ministers of the 
gospel, especially, who have suffered themselves to 



145 

be too much diverted from their great work, must 
come back to it with more undivided aim, and 
their brethren of the churches must stand by them ; 
— We must cease from man, humble ourselves in 
the dust for our sins, plead with agonizing impor- 
tunity for the descent of the Holy Spirit, saying 
with united heart and hope, ' Come and let us re- 
turn to the Lord, for he hath torn and he will 
heal us, he hath smitten and he will bind us up. 
After two days will he revive us ; in the third 
day he will raise us up and we shall live in his 
sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to 
know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as the 
morning, and he will come to us as the rain, as the 
latter and former rain to the earth.' Then shall 
we realize the promised blessings of the latter day ; 
Zion will rejoice and the daughters of Zion sing, 
1 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of 
him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth 
peace ; that bringeth good tidings of good, that 
publisheth salvation ; that saith unto Zion, 
Thy God reigneth ! Thy watchmen shall lift up 
the voice ; with the voice together shall they sing : 
for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall 
bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing to- 
gether, ye waste places of Jerusalem : for the Lord 
hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jeru- 
salem. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in 
13 



146 

the eyes of all the nations j and all the ends of the 
earth shall see the salvation of our God.' 

Great are our encouragements in the work of 
thus Christianizing our nation ; for we are assured 
that the kingdoms of this world are promised to 
Christ, and there is ample indication in the Word 
of God and in the steps of his providence across 
the earth, that the redemption of this promise 
draweth nigh. Not only may we expect that 
Christ will secure this nation to himself, but that 
he will also honor it with the instrumentality of 
spreading abroad the robes of his light and power 
over all the kingdoms of the world. Let us then 
gird on the Christian armor, and go forth to our 
holy duties. Let wisdom and gentleness, let bold- 
ness and decision attend our steps. Let us be 
worthy to live in an age and nation, ordained to 
introduce a new era to the world and bring in an 
everlasting righteousness upon the nations. Let 
us bequeath to our children, and to all posterity, 
the blessings we enjoy, greatly increased ; and al- 
though these eyes will be closed in death, and 
these hands will have ceased from their labor, 
long before the desire of our hearts will be fully 
accomplished, yet shall we be permitted to look 
down from heaven and behold this vast nation 
peopled throughout with intelligence, freedom, 
religion and millennial gladness ; yea, even a re- 
gained paradise blooming over the whole earth, 



147 

shall we then behold, as we participate in the 
thrilling and sublime ecstacy of that trium- 
phant song, with which heaven and earth will 
resound, when all the redeemed shall in con- 
cert sing, ' The kingdoms of this world are 
become the kingdoms of our lord and of his 
Christ, and he shall reign forever and ev- 



SERMON VI. 

THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN MORALITY AS APPLIED TO 
MERCANTILE TRANSACTIONS. 

Preached in Park Street Church, Sabbath Evening, Oct. 
25, 1835. 

Matt. 7 : 12. Therefore all things whatever ye would that 
men should do to you, do ye even so to them : for this is the 
law and the prophets. 

In the preceding verses our Savior announces 
the righteous conduct of our Heavenly Father to- 
wards us his children. He then enjoins on us to 
imitate his example, in our conduct towards each 
other ; and to render his injunction the more intel- 
ligible and valid, requires us to place ourselves in 
the condition of our neighbors, and to do to them 
as we would righteously wish them to do to us ; — 
a truly golden law, but like most other laws of 
practical Christianity very imperfectly obeyed. 

Indeed Christianity as a system of ethics relat- 
ing to business transactions, is not generally well 
understood. The principal reason of this, is the 
great gulf between men of study and men of busi- 



149 

ness. Religious teachers are usually confined to 
the interior of their profession, seldom launching 
out into a knowledge of the laws and movements 
of the business world ; while on the other hand, 
business men are so engrossed with their active 
callings, as not to bestow elaborate investigation 
upon the doctrines and ethical principles of Chris- 
tianity. 

Hence the numerous perplexing cases of casuis- 
try, the frequent embarrassments of good men and 
unfair advantages of bad men, in mercantile busi- 
ness. Conscientious Christians sometimes labor 
under serious difficulties in determining what their 
duty is. The enterprise of some is thus checked ; 
they do not spread themselves out, and command 
the standing and influence in the mercantile world, 
which they otherwise might. Others injure their 
consciences, and thereby frequently suffer a deep 
and painful obscuration of the light of God's coun- 
tenance. In the mean time, unprincipled men are 
not negligent to secure whatever of advantage is 
by good men for conscience' sake gratuitously re- 
signed into their hands. It is hence eminently de- 
sirable to all who reverence the Christian religion, 
that its law of moral righteousness, as applied to 
mercantile transactions, be clearly exposed. The 
speaker is painfully conscious of his inability to do 
this subject justice j but it is in his heart to do the 
best for it he can. 
*13 



150 

The ultimate laws of Christianity, like those 
of natural science, are few and simple. Simplic- 
ity of design and of elementary laws, with prodi- 
gality of results, characterize all the works and in- 
stitutions of God. When you see a science la- 
boring with numerous exceptions, swamped with 
tedious difficulties, beset with insulated facts re- 
solving themselves into no general laws, be assured 
that that science is not well understood. The 
same is true of Christian science., in all its rela- 
tions ; of course, in its relation to mercantile busi- 
ness. The single law announced in our text, ex- 
panded and applied, is a sufficient and perfect mo- 
ral regulator of the mercantile world. 

The plan of my discourse is, by laying down 
some incontestable maxims, first, to elicit the gen- 
eral intention of this Christian law, as related to 
commercial transactions, and secondly, to show its 
practical application. 

I. Your assent is first required to the following 
maxims. 

1. Mercantile business is lawful and necessary. 
The best interests of society demand it. It is one 
of the most ancient, continual, and universal em- 
ployments of the human race. It is rendered nec- 
essary by the construction of our globe, by the 
physical and moral constitution of man, and by 
the divinely intended division of labor. Clearly, 



151 

therefore, it is an employment ordained and sanc- 
tioned by the Creator. 

2. There is then a righteous way of pursuing 
it. Evidently a righteous business admits of being 
transacted in a righteous way. If Christianity be 
designed to direct all lawful employments, of 
which this is one, then there is a way of pursuing 
it strictly according to the gospel ; and that only 
is the righteous way. It is also a way entirely 
practicable to all, not only when all do right, but 
when many do wrong. For it is not in the divine 
constitution of things, that a part of mankind 
should be compelled to violate the gospel, because 
others do. 

3. The Christian method of transacting busi- 
ness must be adapted to the philosophy and design 
of the human mind. It must afford ample scope 
and motive to the constitutional and right moral 
energies of mind, leaving in dormancy all others. 
It calls for mental energy, and gives full play and 
adequate motives to all the right moral feelings of 
the soul. Christianity tends to exalt and enoble 
our natures, whatever be the pursuits in which it 
engages us. 

It is hence easy to see that games of mere haz- 
ard are uncongenial to the spirit of the gospel. 
There is in the constitution of every mind a dis- 
position to be excited. If this exerts itself in a 
healthful exercise of intellect, judgment, and good 



152 

moral affections, it turns to a valuable account. 
But if it exhausts itself in mere passive excite- 
ments, it acts against the intention of the gospel, 
and tends to debase the mind. 

A man for instance, may gamble at dice or lot- 
teries, and engage all his natural power of excite- 
ment in the hazard of the game, without any 
profitable exercise of his intellect, or any benefit 
to his mental and moral nature. He thus uses up 
his stock of mental excitability, just as the drunk- 
ard uses up his stock of nervous excitability, only 
to his destruction. 

The excitement of mere chance — something 
aside from the natural course of things, and hence 
allowing no place to the exercise of forethought 
and judgment — and indeed all excitement, how- 
ever produced, which is merely passive, luxurious, 
unconnected with severe personal thought and ef- 
fort, tends by a certain law of our nature to kill 
the soul. It is the same kind of error into which 
some persons fall on the subject of religion, mak- 
ing regeneration and Christian growth a sort of 
hap-hazard business, — expecting by some felicit- 
ous sport of grace to be lifted to the skies, with- 
out personal effort and self-denial. It is looking 
for an indolent and royal way to glory. Such per- 
sons live by the excitement of stimulating preach- 
ers, in the same way that theatre-going, and novel- 
reading, and game-playing people live by their 



153 

modes of excitement, till the higher energies of 
their souls languish, their intellects become enfee- 
bled, and their moral principles subject to the ca- 
price of wind and tide. Such persons make but 
sickly feverish Christians, if Christians at all. 

The same must be the effect of mercantile busi- 
ness on minds engaged in it, when conducted in 
a way to make it a game of mere hazard. The 
tendency to this effect must be in proportion to the 
degree in which this kind of hazard is allowed to 
pervade its operations, beyond what is unavoidable. 
I suppose that some hazard must attend mercantile, 
as well as all other human pursuits ; and hence 
from the wise providential adaptation of things, 
this small unavoidable degree of it, is not uncon- 
genial to the nature of our minds. It is hence 
plainly for the benefit of a man's own soul, the 
most important personal interest for him to consult, 
so to conduct his business as that it shall call for 
his patient industry — for the steady action of all 
his mental powers — and subject him as little as 
possible to the excitements of mere hazard. 

There is also another important reason why men 
in business should pursue this rational course. So 
woven together are mercantile operations, that if 
one individual suffers, others suffer with him. A 
man should then be cautious how he embarks in 
doubtful speculations, for thereby not only his own, 
but his neighbor's interests are endangered. If 



154 

men cannot be justified in gambling at their own 
expense, much less can they be justified in gam- 
bling at the expense of others. 

4. The Christian law of business must be 
profitable to all parties — to buyers as well as 
sellers. It is a golden law, working equally both 
ways, requiring men to do by others as they would 
themselves be done by ; — that is, well. Mercan- 
tile business then, rightly conducted, is an honora- 
ble giving and receiving of benefits. It is a 

BROTHERLY TRANSACTION. 

Indeed in the light of the gospel, we may lay 
down this broad principle, that no employment can 
be right, in which a man does not benefit others, 
as well as himself. On this principle the manufac- 
turing or selling of ardent spirits, all kinds of lot- 
teries, of gambling, and of fraud, are opposed to 
the spirit of the gospel ; for the gain is all on one 
side, while the other suffers a dead loss. 

The objections to gambling by dice or by lotter- 
ies do not all lie against gambling by chess ; for 
the former affords no mental discipline, being a 
game of mere chance, while the latter does afford 
some salutary exercise to the intellect. Neverthe- 
less, it is wrong on other grounds. Its moral ten- 
dency is inevitably bad, and its result is always a 
pecuniary dead loss to one of the parties. Noth- 
ing is gained to the world. The parties only 
make a transfer of property from one to the other, 



Oo 



when they might have employed themselves in a 
way to benefit both parties and society at large. 

The principle is a plain one ; all can understand 
it. You may be sure that you are not engaged in 
i righteous business, or that you are not conduct- 
ing your business in a righteous way, when you 
are not thereby conferring a benefit upon society, 
upon the world, as well as yourself. 

5. The ultimate standard of right to which 
conscience ought ever to appeal, is the law given 
by Christ, < All things whatever ye would that 
men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' 
Every man transacting business, ought always to 
interrogate his conscience, < Is this doing to others, 
as I would righteously wish others to do to me.' 
If he cannot honestly respond in the affirmative, 
he is going counter to the spirit of Christianity. 

These are our postulates. If any deny them, 
we cannot reason together. Do you admit that 
these are sound Christian maxims ? You may 
perhaps admit them in the abstract, but contend 
that in the present depraved state of business, the 
Christian law cannot be carried into full effect. 
You would be glad to abide by it, you would 
like to steer your ship in a straight line, but you 
are subjected to so many unavoidable fluctuations 
from providential causes, and from the misconduct 
of others, that unless you trim to the breeze, and 



' 156 

sometimes deviate to the right and to the left, your 
ship will founder. 

II. I proceed then, as was proposed, to show 
that obedience to this Christian law is, under all 
circumstances, entirely practicable. 

Let us meet the facts as they are. The great 
commercial interests of nations and communities 
are affected, first, by causes entirely above human 
control — by the seasons of the year, producing or 
cutting off the crops of the earth, &c. , 

Secondly, by political causes — wars, embar- 
goes, &c. making merchandize contraband and in- 
interdicting commerce ; — or by the imposition and 
removal of tariffs, and other governmental move- 
ments. Thirdly, by the operations of a few lead- 
ing minds and heavy capitalists. Subordinate to 
the three first causes, the mercantile enterprise of 
our country is primarily controlled by a very few 
individuals. It seems to be universal in literature, 
in philosophy, in politics, in fashions, and in busi- 
ness, that a few leading minds give laws to the 
world. 

Those causes which are in the sole hands of 
God, we have only to meet with a submissive 
spirit, and to accommodate our conduct to them 
in a Christian manner, as being divinely intended 
for our moral discipline. 

Political causes are in a measure subject to us, 
and hence make it the duty of all men to give 



157 

their influence to the support of righteous govern- 
ment ; while obligations of immense weight rest 
upon those who sit in the high places of power, at 
whose nod millions suffer or rejoice. That all 
can obey the Christian law, in endeavoring to ele- 
vate righteous men to places of power, and that 
all in those responsible places can obey the Chris- 
tian law in the discharge of their trusts, none will 
deny. 

Connected with these providential and politi- 
cal causes, the cause most directly and extensively 
affecting the interests of the great body of mer- 
chants, is found in the conduct of those who, from 
the weight of their purses, or from the boldness of 
their speculations, control the markets. As when 
government capriciously alters the tariffs, so when 
men of large and lawless speculations dash sudden- 
ly upon the markets, and disturb the uniform move- 
ments of business, it is inevitable that multitudes 
suffer. Persons just beginning to swim, and only 
able to keep their heads above water in a calm, 
cannot endure the violent agitation of the elements 
which they produce. If, for instance, a large 
quantity of goods of a particular kind is suddenly 
thrown into the market, at a price far below the 
natural value, all the merchants who have that 
kind of stock on hand must suffer loss j and if 
their capital be insufficient to bear them through 
14 



158 

the emergency till the proper market value of their 
stock is restored, the result is a failure. 

The complicated machinery of the mercantile 
world, is like the wheels of Ezekiel's vision — 
wheels within wheels. Irregularities in the move- 
ments of the great wheels, disturb the movements 
of the numerous smaller ones. How important 
then, that those who move the great wheels 
of business, move them steadily and firmly by 
the law of Christ. Let those to whom God 
has given this power over the prosperity and 
happiness of their fellow men, beware how they 
abuse it. They ought to write the golden law as 
with the point of a diamond upon their hearts ; 
they owe it not only to God and to their fellow 
men, but also to themselves ; for themselves are de- 
pendent on the middling and working classes of 
society. 

How Christian, how noble, how evidently just, 
for men of large means to extend protection and 
encouragement to youthful, aspiring and virtuous 
enterprise, instead of causing or allowing it to be 
nipped in the bud. We could point to some 
among us, who have done and are doing thus ; 
and many are they who have already risen up to 
call them blessed. They have their reward. Obe- 
dience to the Christian law is never unrewarded. 

Selfishness, on the contrary, is equally blind, sin- 
ful, and impolitic. When men of lordly means, 



159 

for the sake of adding a fetv thousands to their 
treasures, instead of regarding the interests of their 
dependents, hesitate not to sport with the pros- 
perity and happiness of the numerous families sub- 
ject to their power, it remains not a question whe- 
ther their enlarged possessions will ever add one 
iota to their own or their children's blessedness, 
either in this world or the world to come. For 
while the gospel condemns the leveling spirit, it 
also condemns with a voice of thunder a selfish 
and abused monopoly of those gifts, which the 
Lord of the world hath bestowed upon the human 
race. 

That the class of men now considered can obey 
and ought to obey the Christian law, in their busi- 
ness transactions, no believer in the doctrine of hu- 
man accountability will doubt. Seldom, however, 
does the note of Christian remonstrance reach the 
consciences of such. Yet reach them it finally 
will, if they refuse to hear it now, in a voice of 
injured thousands, pealing and echoing down the 
ages of their eternity. 

Owing to the varying condition of our country 
and of foreign markets, some change and hazard 
seem to be necessarily incidental to mercantile 
business ; but if those who take the lead of it 
would walk by the Christian law, and others 
would follow their steps, an ocean of sin and suf- 
fering would be rolled from the world. All classes 



160 

would feel the blessing. Only let all be industri- 
ous and temperate, and all have a fair chance, and 
enough is poured upon the earth from the lap of a 
bountiful Providence, to feed and clothe, enlighten 
and elevate, yea, even to enrich with all needful 
blessings, the whole human family. 

But a small portion, however, of this, or of any 
audience, is embraced in the class of which I have 
just spoken. Come we then next to speak of the 
men of middling interests — the most numerous 
class of merchants, to whom the remainder of our 
discourse will be principally addressed. And here 
you may be ready to say, ' Reform the leaders, 
before you presume to approach us. If those who 
control the merchandize and the markets will go 
by the Christian law, then may we. But if they 
will not do it, what then ? We must conform to 
their movements. It is a hard case, if we must 
sustain the evils of their misdoing, without any 
means of relief. Begin at head quarters. Preach 
the Christian law to our national congress ; preach 
it especially to monopolists. Preach it to those 
men who occasion our difficulties, and not to us 
who endure them, and who are compelled to make 
the best of them we can, even by ways which we 
do not exactly like. It is indeed a case doubly hard, 
if we are to support the speculations of those who 
hold the price of our merchandise in their power, and 
can destroy the hope of our gain in a day, and are 



1G1 

also to sustain the benevolent institutions for enlight- 
ening and Christianizing the world. Verily you 
would have our children beg.' 

Consider that an important Christian reformation 
seldom commences at the extremes of society. It 
commences not with the highest in wealth and 
power on the one hand, nor with the lowest orders 
of society on the other. It begins with the mid- 
dling classes — the working men. They are the 
men who are to move the world. Men of indo- 
lence, pleasure and fashion ; lordly monopolists ; 
and even kings and thrones of state, are destined 
to feel the influence, and yield to the power 
which emanates from the intelligent, active and 
virtuous classes of merchants, mechanics, farmers, 
and professional men. The leaven of moral right- 
eousness does not begin to operate at the top, or 
at the bottom, but where our Savior has said, in 
the ' midst ' of the lump. 

Consider also that a reformation in favor of right 
principles, is never made without some of that moral 
courage, fortitude, and benevolence, which is wil- 
ling, if need be, to make a sacrifice. The introduc- 
tion of God's holy religion into our world, after it 
was lost by the fall, was by the sacrifice of his 
Son : and this greatest of all blessings has been 
sustained and carried forward only by the self- 
sacrifices of its friends at every step. The modern 

Christian reformations in respect to intemperance, 
•14 



162 

war, slavery, &c. are effected by the sacrifices of 
individual and collective benevolence. And if 
ever the Christian law in respect to business is 
to be brought forth from the place of mere abstract 
theory, and made to bear practically upon the con- 
duct of men, so that the glory of the Christian 
religion shall shine like the sun to enlighten and 
bless the movements of the mercantile world, it 
must be done by that spirit of bold benevolence, 
which shrinks not from doing right, at whatever 
expense. 

Consider further, that the misconduct of others 
can never put it out of your power to do right, or 
to obtain a living, if it is best to live, by the law 
of Christ. There is a Christian way of meeting 
all circumstances. You may not always do the 
precise things you would do, if others conducted 
right, but you may do what, under existing cir- 
cumstances, is strictly according to the spirit of the 
gospel. 

Let us then proceed. If our third maxim is 
correct, all professions allow a fair competition be- 
tween their members. The mercantile profession 
admits it very extensively. It affords scope for 
calculation, experience, forethought, and tenders 
almost unbounded premiums to a knowledge of the 
condition and movements of the world at large. 
Natural and moral, political and civil, literary and 
religious causes of all countries and nations are 



163 

more or less related to the interests of commerce and 
merchandise. Of course, other things equal, the 
more knowledge of the world a man has, the 
better is he qualified to succeed in mercantile 
business. 

Here then we must meet the important question, 
Wherein, and to what extent has a merchant a 
right to avail himself of his industry, knowledge, 
and sagacity, to advance his interest in competi- 
tion with others ? Here I think an essential dis- 
tinction is to be recognized between the relation in 
which merchants stand to each other, and to men 
of different pursuits. I am especially desirous of 
being clearly apprehended on this point. The 
principle which I maintain is this, that the honora- 
ble and Christian competition of mind with mind, 
has its range principally between the members 
of the same, and not between men of different 
professions. I use the term profession in its exten- 
sive sense, to denote all kinds of callings. For a 
man in one calling to avail himself of his profes- 
sional knowledge, to take advantage of men in 
other callings, is equally base and unchristian. 
Thus, for a lawyer to use his legal knowledge, a 
physician his medical knowledge, or a trader his 
mercantile knowledge, in a way to take advantage 
of a farmer, or a mechanic, whose knowledge lies 
in other things, is fraudulent. For instance, when 
a lawyer avails himself of his client's ignorance of 



164 

legal matters, to swell the amount or the price of 
his services, or when the physician takes similar 
advantage of his patient, or when the merchant 
takes occasion from the purchaser's ignorance of 
goods, to charge him an exorbitant price, there is 
evident departure from the Christian law. 

The reason is this. — There must be a division 
of professions ; of course a division of knowledge. 
The farmer has his kind of knowledge ; the mer- 
chant, his ; the mechanic, his ; the lawyer, his ; 
the physician, his. As the phrase is, ' Every man 
to his trade.' Evidently, then, a man in any one 
of these pursuits, when dealing with men in the 
other pursuits, should take no advantage of their 
ignorance of his own profession. They are not to 
be supposed to understand it. He is entitled for 
his services, to the fair reward due to his profession, 
but he is not entitled to any gain which he may make 
of their ignorance of it. Here is no place for the 
equal and Christian exercise of talent and judg- 
ment ; there can be no fair competition of mind 
with mind. The parties cannot have equal play. 
The man who takes this kind of advantage, cer- 
tainly does not do to others, as he would right- 
eously wish others to do to him. 

But men are to be presumed to understand their 
own profession ; and hence every man is entitled to 
whatever advantage his superior acquirements may 
fairly afford him over the other members of it. 



165 

Thus the lawyer, or physician, or teacher, or arti- 
san is entitled to the advantage which his superior 
industry or skill may secure to him over his less 
industrious and able brethren of the same calling. 
On the same ground, is a merchant entitled to every 
fair advantage, which his superior industry and 
attainments may afford him over other merchants. 
All the members of any one profession, are running 
the same race together, and if there be no unfair 
tripping and jostling of each other by the way, it 
is Christian and right that each should make the 
most he can of the talents and means which God 
has given him. Knowledge is power ; and power 
which men may use in a Christian manner in mer- 
cantile, as well as in other pursuits. 

Some of you may at first object to this doctrine ; 
but before you renounce it, I beg you well to con- 
sider the consequence. You must admit it, or 
strike a fatal blow at the springs of enterprise. 
Indeed men have seldom if ever questioned it, as 
applied to persons in other professions ; why then 
not allow the same privilege to merchants ? The 
cases are parallel. Viewing the subject in this 
light, I cannot but think that undeserved censure 
has been often cast upon mercantile competition. 
Why have not merchants as good right to run the 
race of enterprise, if they but do it honestly, as 
men of other callings ? This is no violation of the 
spirit of the Christian law ; for one man cannot 



166 

righteously wish another to conduct towards him, 
for the sake of accommodating his indolence, or 
his private advantage, in a way that abolishes all 
motives to personal effort and social enterprise. 

We come then to the conclusion, that mer- 
chants in their relations to each other, have a 
right to anticipate the market, to acquire and put 
into exercise all the knowledge and judgment 
which they can command, and to make the most 
of them which they honestly can. I admit that 
this privilege, like the similar privileges of other 
callings, is liable to abuse ; but it is an unavoidable 
liability, and constitutes a part of our moral proba- 
tion. It need not be abused. Every man can 
abide by the Christian law, even in the perilous race 
of commercial enterprise. 

But there is a kind of manoeuvering sometimes 
practiced under color of an honorable competition, 
which is in fact a base imposition upon the public. 
When, for instance, a man forestalls the market, 
so as to take the bread from the hungry, the 
clothing from the naked, the medicine from the 
sick, the fuel from the shivering and destitute, get- 
ting all of an article needful to the community into 
his own hands, and then forcing his own exorbit- 
ant price upon it, he defrauds his fellow citizens. 
This is not a mere competition with his mercantile 
brethren ; for the article being in his power, they 
have only to retail it at a fair advance on his price. 



167 

The community of buyers and sellers are the 
■offerers. The man who does thus, enriches him- 
self at the expense of men in other pursuits, men 
not to be presumed to know the prospects of the 
market ; or if they did, unable to help themselves 
against his monopoly, — perhaps the very men who 
are faithfully serving him in their several callings, 
building his houses, cultivating his vineyards, 
making his garments, teaching his children. 

Hence large monopolies of wealth and power, 
when connected with unprincipled minds, are dan- 
gerous to the public welfare. Those who possess 
this power over their fellow men, and refuse to abide 
by the Christian law, must expect to be rebuked 
by the indignation of an injured community, kin- 
dling and burning in a furnace of wrath upon their 
guilty heads. 

But have we not said that merchants have a 
right to anticipate the market ? Truly. But how, 
and to what intent ? Suppose that a man by his 
superior study, adroitness, and knowledge of those 
natural, civil, and political changes, which affect 
the price of merchandise, anticipates the unavoida- 
ble rise of the value of a certain article in market ; 
invests his capital in that article, and gets it all into 
his own hands. His anticipations are realized. 
The value of the article becomes greatly enhanced. 
He however takes no advantage of the fact that 
he has it all in his own hands, to put upon it a 



168 

price additional to what it would be, if it were 
in the hands of hundreds ; but sells it at the 
natural and unavoidably enhanced value. How- 
ever much he may have gained by trading, has he 
wronged any man ? I conceive not. Whom has 
he wronged ? Not other capitalists and wholesale 
dealers ; for according to our third maxim, it was 
as much their privilege to anticipate the change as 
his. Not the retailers ; for they still retail the 
article at the same pront, as if they obtained it 
from many instead of one. Not the community ; 
for they only give the proper market value — the 
value indicated by causes, above the control of 
merchants, and what they would have to give at 
any rate. Now here is ample scope for the consti- 
tutional energies of mind, and full play for all the 
industry and sagacity requisite to sustain the spirit 
of mercantile enterprise, without any encroachment 
upon the spirit of the gospel. I simply state the 
principle with a single illustration, leaving to you 
the easy task of applying it in the numerous 
details. 

The distinction then between the fair competi- 
tion of merchants with each other, and the imposi- 
tion of merchants upon the community, is very 
broad and obvious. In the former case, the mer- 
chant lawfully exercises his abilities in the pur- 
chase and sale of an article, allowing its prices to 
be regulated by causes which he cannot control. 



169 

In the latter case, he monopolizes the article, to 
the intent that he may force upon it his own 
artificial price. The one is a natural, the other a 
factitious value ; the one created by Providence, 
the other by the merchant. 

The latter case is just as if a physician were to 
monopolize all the medical science, or a lawyer all 
the legal knowledge, or a Christian preacher all the 
theology, and then by retailers deal it out to the 
community at his own exorbitant price. Would 
not such a physician, or lawyer, or preacher, be a 
public nuisance ? Not less a one is such a mer- 
chant. 

We pass next to the inquiry, Whether it is right 
to have different prices ? a very important inquiry, 
and one touching rather tenderly upon the sensi- 
bilities of merchants. By having different prices, 
I mean selling the article at the same time, to dif- 
ferent individuals, at different cash prices. I con 
ceive the custom to be wrong ; — for the following 
reasons. 

First, it bears very unequally and unkindly upon 
the various members of community. There is 
a class of honorable minded persons, who consider 
it an impeachment of your character to question 
your price. They take it for granted that, when 
you state your price, you tell the truth. There is 
also a class of citizens, farmers, mechanics, teachers, 
numerous females, not conversant with the prices 
15 



170 

of merchandise, or the chicanery of different prices. 
On such you impose exorbitant prices, for the 
sake of being able to afford your goods to persons, 
perhaps sharper, but of more equivocal character, at 
even less than the real market value. Is this doing 
to your good neighbor, who casts himself upon your 
integrity, as you would righteously wish to have 
him do to you ? Suppose yourself a school-teacher, 
having no acquaintance with the quality and price 
of goods, would you not feel injured, if you should 
pay forty dollars for five yards of cloth, for a suit 
of clothes to a trader, confiding in his integrity, who 
should sell the same to another person immediately 
after for thirty dollars ? 

Nor does it screen you to say, that the person 
from whom you take the higher price, is not 
obliged to give it ; that you have a right to ask it, 
and he is free to give it or not, as he chooses. That 
a man is not obliged to be wronged, is no apology 
for you to wrong him. Perhaps however you say 
that you do not wrong him ; that you sell to him as 
cheap as you can afford, and it is none of his con- 
cern if you sell to others for less. Make the case 
then your own. Would you not feel injured, to 
be thus treated ? Moreover, do you not well know 
that you could not sell to some for less, if you did 
not sell to others for more, than the proper market 
value ? Your plan is, to exact a high price from 
those of whom you can get it, with a view of thus 



affording to take less of those from whom you 
cannot get it, that you may thus trade as largely as 
possible. Many compound with their consciences 
to do this, supposing it impracticable to succeed 
without. But we think we can show them " a more 
excellent way." 

Secondly, you not only wrong others, but un- 
happily the very persons whose interest you are in 
honor most bound to regard. Is it not peculiarly 
base to take advantage of the man who honors you 
with his confidence ? On the other hand, you deal 
most generously with those who place the least 
confidence in you ; those to whom you really owe 
the least gratitude. If you are at liberty to with- 
hold yourlfavor from any, is it not from those who 
do not confide in you? This is the principle on 
which God acts. All whom he blesses, must con- 
fide in his character ; must believe that he is the 
rewarder of them that seek him. And if you are 
bound to show favor to any, is it not to those who 
confide in you ? This too is the principle on which 
God acts ; and are you not required to imitate him ? 
But on the contrary, you turn the tables, and 
strangely deal exactly the other way. 

Thirdly, this mode of dealing, however sanc- 
tioned by custom, inevitably tends at once to a 
man's own moral injury, and to the destruction of 
all social confidence. Its effects on all parties are 
those of lying. It introduces suspicion and jeal- 



172 

ousy, in the place of confidence and esteem. It 
thus corrodes and sunders the golden links that are 
designed to bind men to each other, in a state of 
social love and mutual dependence. For it is im- 
possible for men of pure and lively sensibilities to 
feel the full soul of confidence towards one in any 
matter, who practices duplicity in business ; and 
confidence withheld, cannot be reciprocated. Let 
the man who deals thus be assured that he is con^ 
tinually alienating himself from the sympathies of 
his fellow-men, and creating an impassable gulph 
betwixt himself and that heaven of virtuous friend- 
ship, which is worth ten thousand times more than 
all the gold for which he barters it. 

But while the seller should have but one price, 
the buyer should not attempt to beat it down. It 
is as much the duty of the buyer not to attempt to 
purchase an article for less than its value, as it is of 
the seller not to attempt to sell it for more. It 
is not to be forgotten, that the buyer may have a 
distorted conscience as well as the seller ; and when 
two crooked consciences come together in dealing, 
they are prone to make very crooked work. Yet 
the reform should commence with the seller. While 
he is known to have both an asking and a taking 
price, how can the purchaser, who is unacquainted 
with goods, defend himself from imposition, but by 
resorting to the ungrateful task of calling his price 
in question ? 



173 

But the merchant assures us that he cannot trade 
in any other way ; that many customers are so 
simple, or so educated, as to suppose that they must 
of course beat down his price, whatever it be, or 
make a bad trade. Such cases however would 
soon be rare, if merchants would do their duty in 
respect to uniform prices. The evil is of their own 
creating, and they must be first to remove it. 
They have taught their customers to expect dupli- 
city in their dealings. I am confident that I speak 
the sentiments of the virtuous part of the commu- 
nity when I say, that they would rejoice to have 
the price of merchandise uniformly right — neither 
too high nor too low — and the same to all ; and 
never to touch it themselves. So it should be. 
With the prices of goods, ordinary purchasers ought 
to have nothing to do. In every right theory of 
trade, the merchant is the only man to declare the 
price of merchandise, for he only is to be supposed 
best to know its quality and market value. It is in 
the power of any merchant to commence the re- 
form in this particular, however others may do. 
Let him become known as dealing righteously and 
with the same price to all, and not many months 
would pass before the buyer who should approach 
him to challenge his prices, would be condemned 
by the unanimous voice of public indignation. 
' With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured 
to you again.' This law pervades the rational uni- 
*14 



174 

verse. He who conducts honorably towards the 
community, shall have the community conduct 
honorably towards him. The reaction is not al- 
ways instantaneous, but ultimately sure. 

A great source of iniquity and trouble among 
merchants, is their haste to be rich. Impatient of 
the steady, industrious, persevering course, they 
are for embarking in bold and rash speculations. 
The glorious fortune of some adventurers sets their 
imaginations on fire, and they are led to hope that 
by some game of hazard, or some felicitous man- 
oeuvre, they too shall turn over a stone concealing 
a bed of gold. Nothing is more fatal to their suc- 
cess in life. As a general rule, there is no short 
and royal road to wealth ; and the effect of pam- 
pering the imagination with chimerical prospects, 
is not less ruinous to merchants, than is the greedy 
reading of novels to the fair sex. A world in which 
imagination unrestrained luxuriates, and hope irra- 
tional revels, is not the safe and innocent world for 
human beings, be they men or women. Hasting 
to be rich, is almost inevitably attended with sin 
and danger. "He that hasteth to be rich hath an 
evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall 
come upon him." 

Others not quite so quixotic, but yet afraid to 
do just right and trust God, take council only of a 
pur blind expediency. They are anxious to buy 
and sell and get gain as fast as they can, and to 



175 

this end suppose it necessary to conform to the cus- 
toms of business, and practice some deception. 
They do not quite like to do so, they wish they 
could succeed as well in some other way, but they 
really suppose they cannot ; and as in the present 
state of business it seems to be unavoidable, they 
flatter themselves that it is lawful under such cir- 
cumstances. It demands no ordinary amount of 
Christian wisdom and integrity, to resist this tempta- 
tion to do wrong. In a world like this, itis no small 
affair to be strictly honest. It was truly said, 

" An honest man's the noblest work of God." 

And we may add, the rarest. But there are some 
merchants of Christian honesty ; and the number 
is increasing. The leaven of righteousness is at 
work, and will finally pervade the whole mercan- 
tile world. The time is approaching, when all 
business will be transacted on Christian principles. 
The work of reform is begun, and it will go on ; 
happy are they who lead it by their example. To 
direct you in this, if the foregoing maxims and rea- 
sonings be correct, we are enabled to present the 
following plain and practicable rules of business, 
as legitimately deduced from the golden law. 

1. The merchant should well understand 
his business. He ought not to enter upon this 
field of perilous encounter, untrained and unhar- 
nessed. Duty demands of every man, that he 
qualify himself for the pursuit in which he en- 



riwiwrn 



176 

gages. He owes it to the public. If it be wrong 
for the physician, or the lawyer, or the mechanic, 
to tender to the public his services before he is 
qualified, no less is it for the merchant. He owes 
it to himself. If he neglects this duty, and, rush- 
ing into business unprepared, finds himself una- 
ble to compete with his brethren, let him blame 
no person for his failure but himself. 

2. He should not allow his ambition to 
exceed his capital. 

Three things constitute the merchant's capital — 
knowledge, reputation, money. A man of a given 
capital can trade more largely for possessing exten- 
sive information, and an established character for in- 
tegrity. But in the time of pressure, money is indis- 
pensable ; and as unforeseen changes are liable to 
come, it is Christian prudence for him to keep 
within the reach of his pecuniary capital. Better 
it is both for himself and the community, to trade 
less and advance safely. Especially when first 
entering upon business, should he ' make haste 
slowly.' 

3. He SHOULD EXERCISE HIS UTMOST VIGI- 
LANCE in purchasing. If he well understands his 
business, he will seldom err in this matter. But 
if his judgment is too defective to avoid frequent 
gross errors, he ought to conclude that Heaven 
never made him for a merchant, and forthwith 
seek some other employment. 



177 



4. He should regulate the price of his 
goods by their cost and their market value. 
If the market be uniform, he should sell them at 
a fair per centage ; if it fluctuate, so must his loss 
or gain. If the value of goods on his hands rise, 
he has a right to raise their price, as an offset to 
his losses from their falling. For evidently it can- 
not be a just rule, which does not work equally 
both ways. If purchasers do not sustain the loss 
when goods fall, they cannot righteously require 
the merchant to relinquish the gain when they 
rise. 

4. He should have but one price. Here 
is the rub. The season of trade is passing ; he 
is anxious to put off his goods, and the temptation 
is strong to sell for less or for more, as he can light 
of purchasers, rather than not to trade. Purchas- 
ers will trade where they can buy cheapest, and 
his neighbor will undersell him. The integrity 
of his character does not guarantee the sale of his 
goods. This certainly looks like a hard case ; nor 
am I disposed to question that here is a serious per- 
plexity, and one that has often afflicted the con- 
sciences of good men. 

But it is not insurmountable. It has been sur- 
mounted in several instances ; and what has been 
done, can be done. Let the merchant uniformly 
place his goods as low as he ought to afford them. 
If he deals in barter, let the rules of an equitable 



178 

barter graduate the increase of his price, so that 
it shall still be virtually the same cash price to all. 
Let him be willing to work cheap and gain slowly. 
Let it become understood that his line is straight, 
that nothing will turn him from it to the right 
or to the left ; and what he loses at first will soon 
return in esteem for his character, securing to him 
a more large, safe, and permanent custom. 

5. He should never disguise the faults, 

OR OVERSTATE THE QUALITY OF HIS GOODS. If 

he has committed an error in purchasing, let him 
suffer the loss. The seller may have wronged him, 
but here let the evil stop ; let him not wrong ano- 
ther to obtain redress. Better suffer wrong than do 
wrong. Let him sell his goods for just what he 
honestly supposes them to be. In one word, let 
him do to others as he would righteously wish to 
have others do to him. Let him do so, not ca- 
priciously and to favorites; but to all men at all 
times ; and the golden law, thus obeyed, will in 
due time give him its golden reward. 

These rules are practicable. I can point you 
to a merchant of high standing, whose history is 
an illustration of this. Having served his appren- 
ticeship in the country, and pursued a country 
trade in a small way till he accumulated about 
two thousand dollars, he commenced business in 
the city. He invested his little capital in goods to 
the best advantage, and opened a small shop. He 



179 

purchased but few goods, and sold them at small 
profit. He fixed his eye on a few safe traders of 
his country acquaintance, and, by his judgment in 
purchasing and his equity in selling, secured their 
confidence. No man ever purchased an article of 
him, which he afterwards found to be less valuable 
than it was recommended to be. No man was 
ever taken in by him. The consequence Avas, that 
his customers gradually increased with his means 
of business, and those too of the best kind. Hon- 
est men love to deal with honest men. Confidence 
in his character often induced customers to trans- 
mit to him orders for goods, relying alone on his 
judgment. This confidence he never abused. In 
the mean time his habits were those of industry, 
economy, and strict temperance. He rose early, 
labored diligently, expended little for dress and 
amusements, and the money realized from the sale 
of goods, he expended in new purchases. Thus 
he kept the snow ball rolling over and over, en- 
larging at every revolution, for more than twenty 
years, and he is now, at the age of about forty-five, 
worth two hundred thousand dollars. This has 
come, not of any unaccountably kind freak of for- 
tune, nor yet of any brilliant speculation ; it is the 
legitimate result of a series of obvious natural 
causes. 

Now the delusion of many is, that they overlook 
the causes by which such results are produced. 



180 

You see a mechanic operating with dexterity ; 
you see a physician controlling diseases ; you see 
a lawyer or a preacher chaining his audience by 
his eloquence or his logic ; you attempt to do the 
same, and you fail. What is the matter ? You 
have not passed through the preparatory steps. 
You are dazzled at the result which you witness, 
but you do not consider the years of severe effort, 
by which it has come. So when you look upon 
a great merchant, see him handling a large capital 
and embarking in large enterprises, you are fired 
with ambition to do the same. You attempt, and 
you fail. What is the matter ? The same as be- 
fore. You have not passed through the preparato- 
ry steps. He was early trained to industry ; he 
was perhaps a poor boy. He served a faithful ap- 
prenticeship. He entered cautiously into business. 
He lived economically, and saved his earnings. 
While others were spending, he was earning; 
while others were wasting their spare time in idle 
amusements, he was improving his mind ; while 
others were speculating, he was working ; thus 
he toiled steadily on from month to month, and 
year to year, Franklin-like, till he reached the em- 
inence where you behold him. Go thou and do 
likewise. 

That we are dependent on the favor of Provi- 
dence, that it is God who putteth down one and 
setteth up another, I would be last to question ; 



181 

but such are the laws of Providence, that a wisely- 
directed diligence is the ordinary way to success. 
The Christian way is the wise way. Godliness is 
profitable unto all things, having promise of the 
life that now is, as well as of that which is to 
come. But if mere temporal motives should suf- 
fice, how much more should the vast motives of 
eternity suffice, to induce men to pursue the hon- 
est course. If men may afford to live honestly for 
the world's sake, how much more for Christ's 
sake. Oh, if all professing Christians would come 
entirely out from the evil customs of the world, if 
they would come quite up to the gospel mark, and 
deal in strict righteousness with all men, how 
would the gospel have free coarse and be glorified, 
and thousands of dark and frozen hearts be filled 
with divine light and love. When shall the relig- 
ion of Jesus shine forth in all its beauty ! 

But Christian morality is not the duty of pro- 
fessing Christians only ; it is incumbent upon 
all. I have the pleasure to address a large num- 
ber of merchants of various classes ; what a 
benign influence, my respected friends, would go 
forth of your example upon the mercantile com- 
munity, if all of you would carry the law of 
Christ fully into your mercantile transactions. 
And if you are then successful, how much more 
valuable will be your property, obtained in a Chris- 
16 



182 

tian way. If you are not successful in temporal 
things, you will still have the glorious reward of 
an approving conscience, with as much of this 
world's goods as God shall see to be best for your- 
selves and your children. Would you have more ? 
Infinitely better without it. ' They that will be 
rich,' despite of Christian honesty, ' fall into temp- 
tation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurt- 
ful lusts, which drown men in destruction and 
perdition. For the unchristian love of money is 
the root of all evil ; which while some have cov- 
eted, they have erred from the faith, and pierced 
themselves through with many sorrows.' 

Are there not other objects of more importance 
than riches ? What is this deity, to which men 
pay so costly a sacrifice ? Can it redeem your 
bodies from the grave, or your souls from perdition ? 
Is not an approving conscience, the esteem of the 
good, a pure mind, the everlasting favor of 
God, of more importance to you ? Will you barter 
heaven for gold ? In the name of Him who can- 
not lie, and of the immutable laws which sustain 
his throne and govern his universe, I solemnly 
warn you, that property acquired in any other than 
a righteous way, you will find to be dearly gotten. 
It will fortify you against religion. It will environ 
you in sin, as with an iron fence ; — it will put you 
in the power of the adversary. ' Your gold and 



183 

silver will eat your flesh as it were fire ! ' It will 
render your dying pillow thorny, and your eternity 
unspeakably wretched. You may roll up unright- 
eous wealth, and nourish your hearts, as in the 
day of slaughter, but a voice of thundering wrath 
will pursue you through the grave into eternity, 
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for the 
miseries which shall come upon you ! ' 

Let me, in conclusion, also invoke you to consid- 
er not only the Christian means, but also the 
Christian end of riches. We have shown that 
the gospel allows full scope to the spirit of com- 
mercial enterprise. But to what end ? That you 
may indulge the selfish passions ? — that you 
may live in pleasure on the earth, and be wanton ? — 
that you may lord it over the world ? — that you 
may forget God, and ruin your souls? — or, that 
you may enervate and spoil your children ? — Is 
it not rather that you may use the means thus ac- 
quired to do good to the world, to advance the 
Redeemer's kingdom and secure immortal treas- 
ures in heaven ? Let me then fulfil my com- 
mission, to " charge them that are rich in this 
world, that they be not high minded, nor trust 

IN UNCERTAIN RICHES, but in the LIVING GoD, 

who giveth us richly all things to enjoy ; that 
they do good, that they be rich in good 

TO DISTRIBUTE, WILLING TO COMMU- 



184 



NIC ATE ; LAYING UP IN STORE FOR THEMSELVES A 

good foundation against the time to come, 
that they may lay hold on eternal life." 
Amen. 



I'/ 



